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Forr.%  L  1 


This  book    is   DL'H  on   the   last   date  stamped   below 


APR   2  1 1924 


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MAR  ^^  2  195a 

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MAR  21  1928 
APR  2  9  1929 


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94  14 


THE    FIRST   TELEGRAM 

{Chamber  of  the  Sjiprcme  Court,  II  'ashijigton,  May  24,  1844.) 

Professor  Morse  senuist,  the  Despatch  as  Dictated  by  Miss  Annie  Ellsworth 

—  THE  Key  Note  to  the  Achievements  of  the  Xineteenth  Century: 

"WHAT    HATH    GOD    WROUGHT"  {See  Page  180.) 


The    STORY    OF    THE    j.     j.     j. 

NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

J'     J-      ^     Of  the    CHRISTIAN   ERA 


By 
ELBRWGE  S.  BROOKS 

A  uthor  of  "  The  True  Story  of  tf-.e  United 
States,"  "The  Story  of  Our  War  With 
Spain"  "The  American  Soldier"  "The 
American  Sailor"  "In  Blue  and  White" 
Etc. 


//37^ 


"  God  'j  in  his  heaven  — 
All  's  right  with  the  world !" 

Robert  Browning. 


ILLUSTRATED 


BOSTON: 
LOTHROP  PUBLISHING    COMPANY 


OqX,  /.S)02- 


COPYRIGHT,  igoo, 
BY  LOTHROP 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY. 


SECOND   EDIT/ON- 


Norwood  Press  : 

Printed  by 

Berwick  6^  Smith. 


c^iiH'E  M^.i.L,  oLuuv;^, 


3^  6 


(1,0  Y'S^ 
PREFACE. 


WITHOUT  binding  myself  to  the  fiat  of  the  mathe- 
matician, or  the  assumption  of  the  Emperor  of 
Germany,  I  have  taken,  for  the  purpose  of  this  "story," 
the  convenient  round  numbers  of  i8oo  to  1900,  inclusive, 
as  constituting  the  Nineteenth  Century.  Years  count  for 
but  little  in  the  evolution  of  a  divine  plan,  and  the  tyranny 
of  figures  is  a  matter  of  human  limitation  ;  but  the  one 
hundred  years,  stretching  from  1800  to  1900,  certainly 
register  the  high-water  mark  of  human  development,  and 
record  the  sublimest  triumph  of  divine  intention.  From 
the  rise  and  fall  of  Napoleon  to  the  regnant  supremacy  of 
the  people,  the  Nineteenth  Century  marched  steadily  on 
through  effort  to  accomplishment,  and,  in  all  departments 
of  human  effort  and  human  achievement,  proved  its  right 
to  be  esteemed,  in  every  sense,  the  "Wonderful  Century." 

If,  in  attempting  to  tell,  briefly  and  generally,  the  story 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century  I  have  fallen  short  in  the  rec- 
ord, or  have  been  hampered  by  an  impossible  adjustment 
of  the  overabundance  of  material  to  the  limitations  of  space, 
I  shall  still  be  satisfied  if  I  may  lead  my  readers  to  investi- 
gate and  study  more  closely  the  remarkable  happenings  of 
the  one  hundred  years  of  progress  that  are  here  imperfectly 
set  down. 

This  one  thing  any  story  of  the  Nineteenth  Century, 

5 


PREFACE. 


whether  briefly  or  bulkily  told,  must  show  :  Progress,  — 
progress  in  government,  in  literature,  in  law,  in  science, 
art,  and  the  methods  of  application  ;  progress,  especially, 
in  human  affairs  and  in  the  elevation  and  freedom  of  man. 

"The  fact  of  our  time  which  overshadows  all  others," 
says  Benjamin  Kidd,  "is  the  arrival  of  Democracy."  As  a 
true  democracy  is  the  soul  of  progress,  so  this  story  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century  has  aimed  to  associate  the  growth  of 
intelligence  with  the  development  of  the  people,  and  the 
triumphs  of  invention  with  the  gradual  "  uplift  "  of  mankind. 

In  the  hope  that  this  rapid  survey  of  the  world's  ad- 
vancement since  the  days  when  Franklin  foresaw  so  clearly 
the  triumphs  of  human  endeavor,  and  Washington  saw  as 
clearly  the  possibilities  of  independence,  may  lead  all  who 
read  it  to  appreciate  the  fact  that  in  spite  of  suspicion  and 
selfishness,  in  spite  of  evil  and  error,  the  world  is  ever 
growing  better,  and  that  divine  purpose  never  takes  a 
backward  step,  the  author  dedicates  his  story  to  all  lovers 
of  humanity,  liberty,  and  equality,  and  especially  to  that 
great  English-speaking  race  which,  if  true  to  its  own  tradi- 
tions, is,  as  one  student  of  development  declares,  "  destined 
to  play  an  immense  part  in  the  immediate  future  of  the 
world." 

"Whenever  I  meditate  upon  government,"  says  Rousseau, 
« I  am  happy  to  find  in  my  investigations  new  reasons  for 
loving  that  of  my  own  country." 

May  that  loyalty  to  their  own  homeland  be  the  possession 
of  all  who  honor  these  pages  with  their  attention. 

ELBRIDGE   S.    BROOKS. 
Boston,  March  15,  1900. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Chap.  I.     How  the  Centurj'  Began 13 

First  Period.     The  Age  of  Napoleon. 

Chap.     II.     When  One  Man  Strove  to  Master  the  World  ...       31 
Chap.  III.     The  Grip  of  "The  Man  on  Horseback"       ....       47 

Second  Period.     The  Age  of  Wellington. 

Chap.  IV.     How  Napoleon's  Star  Set  at  Last 65 

Chap.    V.     How  the  Desire  for  Independence  Grew      ....       8i 

Third  Pf.riod.     The  Age  of  Bolivar. 

Chap.     VI.     How  the  Finst  Quarter  Ended 99 

Chap.  VII.     When  the  World  Grew  in  Manliness 119 

Fourth  Period.     The  Age  of  Jackson. 

Chap.  VIII.     How  the  World  had  a  New  Shaking  up   .     .     .     .     133 
Chap.       IX.     What  "  Old  Hickory"  Helped  to  Accomplish    .     .     147 

Fifth  Period.     The  Age  of  Kossuth. 

Chap.     X.     Why  the  People  grew  Restless 165 

Chap.  XI.     How  All  the  World  had  another  Shaking  up  .     .     .     182 

Sixth  Period.     The  Age  of  Cavour. 

Chap.     XII.     On  the  Portal  of  the  Future 201 

Chap.  XIII.     How  One  Man  Liberated  a  Nation 220 

Seventh  Period.     The  Age  of  Lincoln. 

Chap.  XIV.     How  Another  Man  Enfranchised  a  Race  ....     239 
Chap.     XV.     How  Liberty  and  Union  came  in  more  lands  than 

One 260 

7 


3  CONTENTS. 

Eighth  Period.    The  Age  of  Bismarck.  pagb 

Chap.     XVI.     When  the  World  Readjusted  Itself 279 

Chap.  XVII.     The  Last  "  One-Man  Power  "  of  the  Century  .     .  297 

Ninth  Period.     The  Age  of  Tolstoi. 

Chap.  XVIII.     How  the  World  began  to  Try  the  Golden  Rule  .  313 

Chap.       XIX.     How  the  Nations  Extended  Their  Influence  .     .  326 

Tenth  Period.    The  Age  of  Edison. 

Chap.     XX.     When  Men  began  to  Prove  the  Value  of  Things   .  345 

Chap.  XXI.     How  the  Century  Closed 3^2 

Chronological  Record  of  the  Nineteenth  Century    ...  3^5 

Index 397 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

The  First  Telegram Frontispiece. 

AusTERLiTZ  AND  Napoleon faces       46 

Waterloo  and  Wellington "         80 

Types  of  the  Age  of  Bolivar "        116 

Types  of  the  Age  of  Jackson "         146 

Types  of  the  Age  of  Kossuth "        182 

Types  of  the  Age  of  Cavour "        220 

Abraham  Lincoln "        260 

Sedan  and  Bismarck "        296 

Types  of  the  Age  of  Tolstoi "        326 

Types  of  the  Age  of  Edison "        362 


THE   STORY  OF 
THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 


"A  century  of  analysis  and  reve- 
lation "which  has  reduced  the  size  of 
the  world,  and  the  -width  of  the 
oceans  ;  a  century  of  federation  and 
of  brotherly  lo7'e  which  has  bound 
men  closer  and  closer  together." 

Edward  Ez>erett  Hale. 


TO   THE   CENTURIES: 

'■'■  I  am  the  Century  the  Nineteenth  from   Christ! 
And  though  I  guarded  well  thy  treasures  rare, — 
Inheritance  unequalled  and  unpriced, 
For  me  the  day's  appointed  task  sufficed, 
To  lighten  and  to  ease  the  lot  of  man. 
From  elemental  strongholds  I  enticed 
Strange  Titans  hidden  since  the  world  began; 
Now,  God's  best  creature  wields  them,  subject  to  his  plan. 

" I  am  the  Centtiry  the  Nineteenth  fi-om   Christ! 
What  goeth  from  us,  is  beyond  recall ; 
Yet  unto  every  age  there  shall  befall 
A  revelation  for  its  heart  alone: 
Lol   I  have  kept  my  Weak  Ones  from  the  wall, 
And  to  my  Strong  their  feebleness  have  shown ; 
The  letter  fades  apace  —  the  spirit  must  atone  1  " 

Edith  Matilda  Thomas. 
From  the  "  Critic  "  for  December,  i8gg. 


THE 

STORY  OF  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 

CHAPTER   I. 

HOW    THE    CENTURY    BEGAN. 

OF  all  the  centuries  that  have  passed  since  Christ  was 
born  at  Bethlehem  the  Nineteenth  Century  has  been 
the  best,  the  greatest,  the  most  wonderful.  And  this  is 
as  it  should  be ;  for  Christianity,  sprung  from  that  lowly 
manger  at  Bethlehem,  means  unrest,  unrest  means  effort, 
effort  means  achievement,  achievement  means  progress, 
and  progress  is  the  one  thing  that  has  made  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  the  greatest  one  hundred  years  since  first 
the  world  began  swinging  in  space,  countless  ages  ago. 
Read  with  me,  I  pray  you,  the  Story  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century. 

When  the  Nineteenth  Century  was  bom  the  world  was 
in  a  restless  state  ;  the  great  family  of  nations  was  dis- 
turbed by  new  ideas  and  new  desires.  That  half  of  the 
globe  known  as  the  New  World  —  because,  though  the  old- 
est half  geologically,  it  was  the  newest  politically  —  had,  in 
the  last  quarter  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  set  a  new  lesson 
for  the  rest  of  the  world  to  learn  :  the  lesson  of  man's 
independence,  the  power  of  the  people,  and  the  equal  right 
of  all  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 

•3 


14       THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

To  set  this  lesson  so  that  all  the  world  might  read,  a 
few  thousand  patriots  —  a  fraction  only  of  the  three  million 
colonists  along  the  Atlantic  coast  of  North  America  —  had 
struggled  through  years^of  protest,  privation,  determination, 
and  battle,  until  success  had  been  won,  a  nation  of  free- 
men established,  and  the  world  aroused  to  the  knowledge 
of  individual  liberty  and  national  independence. 

In  America,  when  the  Nineteenth  Century  opened,  the 
greatest  of  Americans  and  the  noblest  of  men  had  just 
closed  his  honorable  and  glorious  career.  George  Wash- 
ington was  dead.  In  France  a  marvellous  man  was  just 
entering  upon  a  career  of  greatness  that  was  to  rouse  the 
world  to  wonder,  set  all  Europe  by  the  ears,  and  make  its 
map  anew.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  was  First  Consul  of  France, 
and  from  a  poor  Corsican  lieutenant  of  artillery  had  already 
become  the  dictator  of  Europe. 

Because  of  George  Washington  and  American  indepen- 
dence, came  Napoleon  Bonaparte  and  European  enlighten- 
ment.    Success  in  America  meant  desire  across  the  seas. 

In  cruel  fashion  and  in  poorly  planned  endeavor  France 
had  cast  off  the  tyranny  of  centuries  and  established  the 
French  Republic,  with  the  glorious  motto,  "  Liberty, 
Equality,  and  Fraternity."  Other  nations,  long  bowed 
beneath  a  like  tyranny  of  kings  and  princes  and  privileged 
classes  wrongly  called  "  Nobles,"  saw  the  success  of  Amer- 
ica and  the  effort  of  France,  and  longed  to  be  their  own 
masters  and  rulers.  The  people  were  beginning  to  br;ively 
think  rather  than  to  blindly  obey. 

But  desire  does  not  always  yield  right  methods.  There 
is  a  right  and  a  wrong  way  to  attain  results.  America  had 
taken  the  right  way  ;  France  had  followed  the  wrong.     So 


HOW   THE   CENTURY   BEGAN.  I5 

the  terrible  spectacle  of  F'rancc's  wrong  way  of  doing  a 
right  thing  had  saddened,  terrified,  and  sobered  Europe, 
and  had  led  her  people  to  make  haste  slowly,  uncertain 
whether  it  were  wise  to  attempt  to  walk  the  path  of  liberty 
if  that  way  led,  as  it  had  in  France,  through  blood  and 
terror,  or  to  exchange  a  thousand  tyrants  for  one  relentless 
despot  and  continual  war.  Washington's  greatness  seemed 
well-nigh  overshadowed  by  Napoleon's  selfishness. 

And  yet  Napoleon's  selfishness  had  not  been  valueless  to 
the  world.  It  had  aroused  where  it  had  antagonized,  and 
rebuilt  where  it  had  overthrown.  The  American  Revolu- 
tion and  the  French  Revolution  had  set  the  people  to 
thinking.  The  greatness  of  Washington  and  the  triumphs 
of  Napoleon  had  shown  men  how,  in  the  words  of  St.  Paul, 
God  had  chosen  "the  weak  things  of  the  world  to  confound 
the  things  that  are  mighty  ;  and  the  things  which  are 
despised  hath  God  chosen,  yea,  and  things  which  are  not, 
to  bring  to  naught  things  that  are."  For  George  Wash- 
ington was  but  a  plain  Virginia  farmer,  and  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  the  son  of  a  Corsican  lawyer  ;  and  those  two 
men  remade  the  world  of   1800. 

Of  Washington,  Green,  the  historian  of  the  English 
people,  has  declared,  "  No  nobler  figure  ever  stood  in  the 
fore-front  of  a  nation's  life "  ;  while  Napoleon  Bonaparte, 
by  the  very  selfishness  of  his  ambitions,  destroyed  old 
tyrannies,  threw  the  vigor  of  endeavor  into  conquered 
peoples,  and  awoke,  especially  in  Germany,  that  spirit  of 
patriotism  and  union  that  finally  led  to  his  own  overthrow, 
and  the  development  of  a  new  Europe. 

The  times  indeed  were  ripe  for  this  making  of  a  new 
Europe,  a  new  America,  and  a  new  world.     Even  in  the 


l6        THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

midst  of  wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  men,  thrown  on  their 
own  resources  or  stirred  to  think  out  new  ways  of  doing 
things  along  other  than  poHtical  Hnes,  were  blessing  the 
world  with  the  hints  toward  the  very  things  that  were  to 
make  the  Nineteenth  Century  so  great. 

When  Benjamin  Franklin,  the  prophet  of  industrial 
America,  came,  in  1790,  to  the  end  of  his  long,  useful, 
and  helpful  life,  he  said,  "  I  have  sometimes  almost  wished 
it  had  been  my  destiny  to  be  born  two  or  three  centuries 
hence.  For  invention  and  improvement  are  prolific,  and 
beget  more  of  their  kind.  The  present  progress  is  rapid. 
Many  things  of  great  importance,  now  unthought  of,  will, 
before  that  period,  be  produced ;  and  then  I  might  not 
only  enjoy  their  advantages,  but  have  my  curiosity  satisfied 
in  knowing  what  they  are  to  be." 

That  was  the  wonderful  old  man's  prophecy  and  regret 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  think  now, 
what  the  opening  years  of  the  twentieth  century  show  as 
the  result  of  the  advancing  thought  of  the  nineteenth ! 
"  Many  things  of  great  importance  will  be  produced,"  said 
Franklin  ;  suppose  he  could  revisit  the  earth  to-day,  and 
see  how  his  prophecy  was  realized  within  less  than  one 
hundred  years  of  its  utterance,  and  how  the  things  that 
we  accept  as  ordinary  and  commonplace  are  almost  like 
some  great  magician's  miracle  compared  to  the  things  that 
Franklin  knew,  —  hydraulic  mining,  the  modern  battleship, 
the  telephone,  electric  lighting,  and  wireless  telegraphy,  the 
X-rays,  and  modern  machinery ! 

The  Nineteenth  Century  opened  with  some  of  these 
things  "in  the  air."  An  English  engineer  and  machinist, 
named  Joseph  Bramah,  had  already  invented  the  remark- 


HOW   THE   CENTURY    BEGAN.  17 

able  safety-lock  and  powerful  hydraulic  press  that  still  bear 
his  name  ;  he  also  invented  a  printing-press  for  banknotes, 
a  machine  for  sawing  stone,  and  he  lost  his  life  in  devising 
a  contrivance  for  uprooting  tree-trunks.  Illuminating  gas 
was  in  use  for  lighting  a  few  buildings  in  England  and 
France ;  Claude  Chappe,  a  Frenchman  of  Normandy,  had 
devised  a  sort  of  telegraphing  by  signal  posts,  so  that  a 
message  could  be  sent  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  in  a 
quarter  of  an  hour ;  William  Herschel,  an  English  music 
teacher,  had  made  some  wonderful  improvements  in  tele- 
scopes ;  and  Laplace,  a  French  professor  of  mathematics, 
had  made  some  startling  astronomical  discoveries ;  an 
Italian  professor,  named  Luigi  Galvani,  while  skinning 
frogs'  legs  to  make  soup  for  his  sick  wife,  had  discovered 
the  electrical  currents  which  led  to  the  development  of 
galvanism  ;  and,  about  the  same  time,  another  Italian  pro- 
fessor, named  Alessandro  Volta,  also  by  noticing  the  mus- 
cular twitching  of  a  frog,  studied  out  his  theory  of  electrical 
motion,  from  which  came  the  voltaic  pile  or  battery,  known 
to  us  now  as  '*  volts."  In  1800,  Dr.  Edward  Jenner,  an 
English  physician,  had  introduced  vaccination  as  a  preven- 
tion of  the  dreaded  small-pox ;  two  brothers  of  central 
France,  named  Montgolfier,  had  discovered  and  attempted 
the  possibility  of  air-travel  by  inflated  balloons  ;  a  Bohemian 
play-writer  and  printer,  named  Alois  Senefelder,  while  try- 
ing to  make  out  a  washerwoman's  bill  for  his  mother 
without  ink  or  paper,  discovered  the  art  of  writing  on 
stone  —  Uthography,  now  so  wonderful  in  its  productions;  a 
French  refugee  to  America,  Marc  Brunei,  had  introduced 
machinery  into  ship-building ;  and  an  English  chemist, 
named  John  Dalton,  had  revolutionized  chemical  knowledge 


1 8        THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

and  method  by  his  discovery  that  all  chemical  combinations 
were  not  between  the  chemical  compounds,  but  between 
the  beginnings  or  bases  of  those  compounds  —  the  units 
or  atoms  to  which  they  could  be  reduced ;  this  great  dis- 
covery was  called  the  atomic  theory.  And  in  America, 
Eli  Whitney  had  made  the  South,  and  ruined  himself,  by 
his  invention  of  the  cotton-gin. 

Those  were  but  a  few  of  the  discoveries  the  world  was 
making  or  putting  to  practical  use  when  the  Nineteenth 
Century  began.  They  were  simply  the  developments,  or 
following  out  of,  the  thoughts  and  experiments  that  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  and  other  great  thinkers  before  him  had 
dimly  conceived  or  openly  advocated  ;  indeed,  certain  of 
these  modern  discoveries  had  been  known  to  the  older 
nations  or  to  those  which,  when  the  Nineteenth  Century 
opened,  had  fallen  again  into  darkness  and  ignorance,  or 
were  selfishly  keeping  to  themselves,  desiring  no  communi- 
cation with  what  they  called  "  the  barbarians  of  the  outside 
world."  Chief  among  this  latter  class  of  isolated  peoples 
was  the  great  empire  of  China. 

Bordering  the  western  shore  of  the  broad  Pacific  ;  with  a 
vast  territory  and  a  vaster  population  ;  with  a  literature, 
arts,  science,  and  inventions  stretching  back  far  beyond 
the  time  of  Christ,  China,  known  to  our  remote  forefathers 
of  the  time  of  Columbus  as  Cathay,  had,  for  centuries, 
drawn  about  herself  a  wall  of  isolation  and  seclusion  as  for- 
bidding as  the  great  stone  wall  with  which  the  Emperor 
Che-Hwang-te  had,  two  hundred  years  before  Christ,  en- 
circled his  great  dominions.  Dominated  and  ruled  by  its 
Tartar  dynasty  for  over  two  hundred  years  it  still  kept  so 
completely  to  itself  that  even  in  the  year  1 800  it  was  but 


HOW    THE   CENTURY    BEGAN.  I9 

little  known  to  the  people  of  Europe  or  America  save  as, 
under  severe  restrictions,  trading-vessels  would  now  and 
then  enter  one  of  its  well-guarded  ports. 

Japan,  the  island  empire  lying  to  the  north  and  east  of 
China  was,  likewise,  a  sealed  book  to  the  western  world,  as, 
indeed,  were  most  of  those  far-reaching  lands  of  the  eastern 
hemisphere  known  as  the  Orient.  India,  Persia,  and  Afghan- 
istan were  other  hermit  nations  ;  Asia  Minor  was  sunk  in 
degradation  ;  indeed,  the  very  cradle  of  the  progress  and 
civilization  of  the  world  had  stopped  rocking ;  for  the  lands 
from  which,  in  distant  ages,  what  is  known  as  the  Aryan  peo- 
ple had  migrated  westward,  and  given  to  the  world  its  first 
advance  along  the  path  of  progress  ;  from  whom,  too,  came 
those  germs  of  civilization  which,  carried  through  Greece 
into  Europe,  gave  religion,  philosophy,  literature,  science, 
and  art  to  man,  were,  when  the  Nineteenth  Century  began, 
buried  in  ignorance  and  sloth,  ground  down  by  tyranny 
and  despotism,  having  made  no  step  in  the  forward  move- 
ment toward  intelligence  and  civilization  which  had  begun 
within  its  borders,  and  were,  indeed,  to  remain  thus  lost 
and  isolated  until  the  influence  of  the  west,  begim  by 
England  in  the  south,  by  Russia  in  the  north,  and  by 
America  on  its  eastern  borders,  was  to  give  it  a  lasting  im- 
pulse, in  an  actual  struggle  for  life  and  nationality,  toward 
progress  and  enlightment. 

Of  that  great  section  of  Eastern  Europe  familiar  to  us  as 
Russia,  but  little  was  really  known  in  1800.  Peter  the 
Great  had  made  the  first  forward  movement  for  his  bar- 
barous kingdom  in  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, and  Catharine  II.,  the  German  wife  of  another  but 
most   insignificant   Peter,   carried  forward  the  might  and 


20         THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

progress  which  the  Great  Peter  had  begun.  But  she  died 
just  before  the  Nineteenth  Century  was  born  ;  and  only  when 
Alexander  and  Napoleon  were  rivals  for  the  supremacy  of 
Europe  did  Russia  really  assume  a  place  among  the  great 
and  progressive  powers  of  the  world. 

In  that  mighty  struggle  all  the  nations  of  Europe  had  a 
part.  In  the  clash  many  an  ancient  power  went  down. 
Switzerland,  long  the  only  republic  in  the  world,  lost  her 
liberties  ;  so,  too,  did  Venice,  the  glory  of  the  Middle  Ages  ; 
so,  indeed,  did  all  Italy,  from  the  Alps  to  Sicily;  while 
Spain  and  Portugal,  Holland  and  Belgium,  Denmark,  Nor- 
way, and  Sweden,  fell  under  French  control.  Austria,  proud 
and  haughty  under  the  domain  of  its  Hapsburg  emperors, 
only  saved  itself  from  ruin  by  a  coalition  with  the  French 
conqueror ;  and  the  kingdom  of  Prussia,  with  all  its  large 
and  small  German  duchies  and  principalities,  was  well-nigh 
swallowed  in  the  vortex  of  war  and  dismemberment. 

Indeed,  as  the  Nineteenth  Century  opened.  Napoleon, 
fresh  from  his  invasion  of  Egypt,  was  dreaming  of  univer- 
sal empire,  and  the  great  Mohammedan  power  known  as  the 
Turkish  Empire,  was  already  a  tottering  fabric,  upheld 
only  by  the  rival  purposes  of  France  and  Russia. 

Upon  Africa,  that  seat  of  earliest  civilization,  the  black- 
ness of  utter  night  had  fallen.  Where  once,  along  the 
southern  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  Rome  and  Carthage 
had  held  sway,  and  learning  and  culture  had  their  seat, 
only  pirate  states  existed,  demanding  and  enforcing  tribute 
from  the  world,  while  Egypt,  fallen  into  evil  ways,  had 
nothing  but  its  ruins  and  its  pyramids  to  tell  of  its  ancient 
glory ;  for  even  the  vigor  of  its  Ottoman  conquerors 
seemed  gone  forever.     Below  the  boundaries  of  the  desert 


now  THE  CENTURY  BEGAN.  21 

wastes  of  Sahara,  stretched  a  vast  unexplored  and  unknown 
continent,  the  home  of  savage  and  warring  tribes,  drawn 
upon  by  the  hunters  of  men  for  the  victims  of  the  horrible 
slave-trade,  and  more  barbarous  and  brutal  in  their  igno- 
rance than  the  roving  red  Indians  of  the  American  forests 
and  prairies. 

These  redmen  of  America,  when  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury began,  still  occupied  and  dominated  the  largest  portion 
of  North  America.  The  American  Revolution  had  secured 
the  independence  of  the  United  States,  but  the  western 
portion  of  the  new  republic  was  a  most  uncertain  and  waver- 
ing line.  In  the  year  1800  France  still  held  most  of  the 
territory  west  of  the  Mississippi,  under  the  name  of  Loui- 
siana. Spain  owned  certain  territory  east  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  south  of  the  thirty-first  parallel  of  latitude,  under 
the  name  of  Florida  ;  east  and  north  of  these  boundaries, 
to  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  the  Great  Lakes,  lay  the  posses- 
sions of  the  United  States  of  America,  eight  hundred 
and  twenty-eight  thousand  square  miles.  The  twentieth 
century  opens  with  that  area,  on  the  continent  alone,  in- 
creased almost  sevenfold,  or  over  three  and  one-half  mil- 
lion square  miles,  while  the  flag  of  the  republic  floats  in 
possession  over  islands  once  crushed  beneath  the  power  of 
Spain. 

But  in  1800  even  the  eight  hundred  thousand  square 
miles  of  the  United  States  were  largely  given  up  to  Indian 
occupation  ;  for  what  is  called  the  centre  of  population,  or 
better,  the  "  centre  of  gravity  "  of  the  population  of  the 
country,  was  but  eighteen  miles  west  of  Baltimore,  in 
Maryland.  Only  about  three  hundred  and  five  thousand 
square  miles  of  its  territory  were  settled,  and   had  a  popu- 


22         THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

lation  of  a  little  over  four  million.  In  1900  the  population 
has  grown  to  more  than  eighty  million. 

England  claimed  possession  of  all  the  North  American 
continent  north  of  the  Great  Lakes,  with  the  exception  of 
the  extreme  northwesterly  corner,  which  was  known  as 
Russian  America.  To-day  that  "corner"  is  known  as 
Alaska,  a  valuable  territory  of  the  United  States.  Spain 
owned  all  of  the  present  domain  of  the  United  States  west 
of  Texas,  and  including  Colorado,  Wyoming,  and  Montana  ; 
she  possessed  Mexico  and  Central  America,  and  all  the 
vast  territory  of  South  America  from  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama  to  Cape  Horn,  excepting  Brazil,  which  belonged  to 
little  Portugal. 

So  you  see  that  the  civilized  United  States  in  the  year 
1800  occupied  but  a  very  small  portion  of  the  earth's  sur- 
face, and  had  but  a  slight  political  influence. 

Their  influence,  in  fact,  was  in  ideas  more  than  anything 
else.  A  new  nation,  they  had  undertaken  a  new  problem, 
—  the  task  of  governing  themselves.  The  young  republic 
had  a  large  area  to  develop ;  it  had  no  fear  of  its  neigh- 
bors, as  had  every  one  of  the  rival  states  of  Europe ;  it  had 
no  desire  for  conquest,  no  need  to  waste  its  revenues  in 
great  armies  or  fleets  of  war ;  no  wish  to  do  anything  but 
to  strengthen  itself  on  its  own  soil  by  a  career  of  peaceful 
industry.  It  had  its  own  political  differences,  rivalries,  and 
ambitions,  but  they  were  local  rather  than  national.  The 
spirit  of  union  was  voiced  in  the  song  of  "  Hail,  Columbia  ;  " 
and,  though  the  Republic  had  great  sympathy  for  the 
experiment  of  popular  liberty  in  France,  yet  when  France 
sought  to  trade  upon  its  sympathies,  and  embroil  the  United 
States  in  the  foreign  and  domestic  troubles  of  France,  the 


now    THE   CENTURY    BEGAN.  2$ 

Republic  said,  "  No  !  that  is  none  of  my  business,"  and  was 
ready  to  arm  itself  against  the  arrogant  demands  of  France 
for  money  for  its  needs.  "  We  helped  you ;  help  us ! " 
said  France ;  and  then  came,  in  reply  to  the  demand  for 
"blackmail,"  the  noble  sentiment  of  Pinckney,  the  Ameri- 
can envoy  to  France :  "  Millions  for  defence,  but  not  one 
cent  for  tribute  !  " 

While  the  freemen  of  America  were  gradually  feeling 
their  way  westward  to  the  savage  borders  of  their  own 
domain,  the  adventurers  of  the  world  were  following  along 
the  paths  of  discovery,  and  setting  inquisitive  feet  upon  the 
islands  of  the  sea.  When  the  Nineteenth  Century  began 
the  island-continents  that  now  comprise  the  geographical 
division  known  as  Australasia  were  unknown  save  to  a  few 
daring  navigators,  and  unoccupied  save  by  their  native 
tribes.  New  Guinea,  Australia,  Tasmania,  New  Zealand, 
and  the  scattered  archipelagoes  that  dot  the  western  Pa- 
cific, were  still  practically  unexplored.  Spain  and  Portugal, 
France,  Holland,  and  England,  had  for  years  voyaged, 
traded,  and  claimed  possession  in  these  Pacific  waters  as 
well  as  in  what  was  known  as  the  East  Indies  ;  but  actual 
occupation  and  colonization  had  been  attempted  only  at 
few  points,  so  that  this  vast  stretch  of  fertile  Pacific  and 
Indian  islands  was  practically  unknown  to  civilization.  In 
the  great  Indian  peninsula,  jutting  out  from  southern  Asia, 
England  had,  in  1800,  obtained  a  considerable  footing, 
thanks  to  the  resistless  energy  of  Clive  ;  but  it  w^as  still  a 
fierce  struggle  for  possession  between  English  governors 
and  native  princes  in  what  Tennyson,  later,  called  "wild 
Mahratta  battle,"  and  in  no  portion  of  the  "  uncivilized 
world,"  as  Europeans  arrogantly  termed  all  vast  stretches 


24         THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

of  native  possessions,  had  the  aggressive  and  wealth-seeking 
white  man  yet  secured,  when  the  Nineteenth  Century 
opened,  absolute  or  undisputed  possession. 

The  West  India  islands,  in  the  Atlantic  waters,  were 
possibly  an  exception.  Since  the  days  of  Columbus  and 
his  companions,  these  fertile  tropic  islands  had  been  under 
the  ever-changing  control  of  Spain,  Holland,  England,  and 
France  ;  and  their  rich  harvests  of  sugar-cane  and  tobacco 
were  building  up  a  profitable  "West  India  "  trade. 

When  the  Nineteenth  Century  began,  the  world,  as  I 
have  told  you,  and  as  you  may  see  from  this  opening  pic- 
ture, was  in  a  turmoil.  Unrest  was  the  order  of  the  day. 
The  spirit  of  liberty,  the  desire  for  possession,  the  lust  of 
adventure,  of  greed  and  of  gain,  were  struggling  for  mas- 
tery. Change  was  in  the  air.  Man,  through  three  hun- 
dred years,  had  been  slowly  developing  the  three  great 
inventions  of  the  Middle  Ages  —  the  mariner's  compass, 
gunpowder,  and  printing  —  until,  at  last,  civilization  had 
applied  them  to  its  own  practical  and  generally  selfish 
uses.  Wars,  treaties,  and  revolutions,  continuous  and 
interminable,  had  resulted  therefrom  ;  but  this  ceaseless 
upheaval  was  rapidly  transforming  the  world,  and  making 
the  way  clear  for  the  material,  social,  and  intellectual  devel- 
opment of  the  People  who,  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  were 
to  take  affairs  in  hand,  and  lead  the  world  to  nobler  heights 
of  endeavor  and  achievement. 

In  the  year  1800  all  Europe  was  at  war.  That  was 
nothing  new.  Europe  had  forever  been  at  war  since 
the  early  days  of  Aryan  immigration  had  led  to  the  days  of 
Roman  dominion  and  power.  But  the  wars  that  ushered 
in  the  Nineteenth  Century  were  far  different  from  those 


HOW   THE   CENTURY    BEGAN.  2$ 

that  had  gone  before.  Now  the  people  were  rising,  and 
the  quarrels  of  individual  rulers  or  of  rival  races  gave  place 
to  the  struggle  for  independence  and  manhood. 

To  think  and  to  reason!  —  the  development  of  these 
faculties  in  man  was  the  impulse  toward  independence. 

"  'Tis  education  forms  the  common  mind, 
Just  as  the  twig  is  bent  the  tree's  inclined," 

wrote  one  of  the  great  English  poets  of  the  eighteenth 
century  ;  and  just  as  that  eighteenth  century  was  drawing 
to  a  close,  George  Washington  said  to  his  countrymen  in 
his  famous  "  Farewell  Address,"  "  Promote,  as  an  object  of 
primary  importance,  institutions  for  the  general  diffusion  of 
knowledge.  In  proportion  as  the  structure  of  government 
gives  force  to  public  opinion,  it  is  essential  that  public 
opinion  should  be  enlightened." 

This  means  that  the  stupid  man  is  content  to  be  a  slave ; 
but  that  liberty,  which  is  founded  on  law,  is  possible  only 
to  the  man  who  thinks,  intelligently. 

For  centuries  learning  and  literature  had  been  possible 
only  to  a  comparatively  small  portion  of  the  people.  Edu- 
cation indeed  had  slumbered  far  beyond  the  night  of  the 
dark  ages,  as  the  times  of  grossest  ignorance  were  called  ; 
and  not  until  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  did 
the  people  begin  to  desire  to  really  know  something.  Such 
men  as  Comenius  the  Moravian,  and  Hermann  Francke  the 
German,  and  John  Locke  the  Englishman,  had  laid  the 
foundations  upon  which  Rousseau  and  Basedow  and  Pesta- 
lozzi  reared  their  systems  of  education,  and  prepared  the 
way  for  the  wonderful  educational  developments  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century.     But  in  1800  these  systems  were  only 


26         THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

in  process  of  formation,  and  the  education  of  the  chil- 
dren of  the  world  was  slight  and  small.  Prussia  had, 
perhaps,  the  best  system  of  education  ;  but,  throughout  the 
world,  the  uneducated  were  in  a  vast  majority.  Nearly 
sixty  per  cent  of  the  people  of  England  were  unable  to 
write  their  names,  and  in  all  the  kingdom  there  were  but 
three  thousand  schools,  public  and  private.  The  United 
States  had  been  too  busy  in  setting  up  housekeeping  to 
attend  school  —  and  what  schools  they  had  were  few  and 
poor.  France  was  even  worse  off ;  for  her  bloody  revolu- 
tion had  left  no  time  for  education.  Italy  and  Spain  were 
fearfully  ignorant  ;  Austria  and  Russia  were  positively 
uneducated  ;  and  while  in  China  and  India  children  had 
always  gone  to  school,  instruction,  as  in  all  oriental  coun- 
tries, was  confined  to  the  simplest  moral  teaching ;  and 
Hottentot  and  Bushman,  knowing  nothing  but  how  to  eat 
and  shoot  and  sleep,  were  not  so  very  far  below  the  children 
of  the  people  in  most  parts  of  what  was  then  called  the 
civilized  world. 

Literature  —  the  knowledge  and  reading  of  books  — 
was  confined  to  even  smaller  limits  than  was  education. 
Great  names  were  known  to  the  world  of  letters  ;  but  that 
world  was  very  small  in  comparison  to  the  real  globe,  or 
even  to  the  real  people  of  a  nation.  Doctor  Samuel  John- 
son was  the  great  name  in  England  ;  the  "  Times  "  had 
just  begun  publication  in  London  ;  Goethe  was  the  fore- 
most writer  of  Germany,  and  Rousseau  the  most  popular 
in  France ;  Robert  Burns  was  the  one  man  who  was  touch- 
ing the  heart  of  the  people  with  his  simple  lays  ;  Moore  and 
Byron  were  scarcely  more  than  boys  ;  Schiller,  Schlegel, 
Schelling,  and  Humboldt  were  the  representatives  of  Ger- 


HOW   THE   CENTURY    BEGAN.  2/ 

man  thought  and  culture,  as  Derzhavin  the  poet,  Karamzen 
the  historian,  and  Kriloff  the  story-teller  were  in  the  van 
of  Russia's  slow  growth  in  literature.  Pushkin,  the 
greatest  of  Russian  poets,  was  a  year-old  baby  when  the 
Nineteenth  Century  began ;  Alfieri  and  Parini  were  the  great 
names  in  Italian  literature,  while  Spain  had  fallen  sadly 
from  the  "  golden  age  "  of  Cervantes  and  Lope  de  Vega  of 
two  centuries  before.  In  America,  too,  the  American 
book  was,  as  yet,  a  dull  and  uninviting  affair  ;  there  was 
little  done  in  literature,  for,  so  busy  were  our  grandfathers 
and  great  grandfathers  in  setting  their  new  nation  on  its 
feet,  that  they  found  no  time  for  "book  lamin',"  and,  as 
Lowell,  in  later  days,  declared, 

"They  stole  Englishmen's  books  and  thought  Englishmen's  thought, 
"With  English  salt  on  her  tail  our  wild  eagle  was  caught." 

But  in  1800  Washington  Irving  was  a  boy  of  thir- 
teen, and  "the  father  of  American  Literature  "  was  stor- 
ing up  the  material  that  was  to  awaken  the  creative 
thought  of  his  native  land.  Cooper,  too,  was  but  a  boy  of 
ten.  Bryant  was  not  yet  si.x,  and  Fitz-Greene  Halleck 
had  scarcely  got  into  jackets.  There  had,  as  yet,  come  no 
gleam  from  the  land  of  Washington  of  the  light  that  was 
to  stream  across  the  ocean,  and  make  the  America  of  the 
last  half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  a  great  book-readmg 
and  book-making  nation. 

So,  after  centuries  of  gradual  gro\vth  and  of  barbarism 
and  semi-civilization,  the  world  stood  at  the  opening  of 
the  Nineteenth  Christian  Century,  not  yet  truly  Christian- 
ized, civilized,  or  progressive.  Through  all  those  centuries 
the  people  had  slowly  but  surely  been  rising  out  of  degrada- 


28         THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

tion  into  a  knowledge  of  their  own  manhood  and  their  own 
power,  until,  through  blood  and  tears,  through  sorrow  and 
suffering,  through  dawning  self-knowledge  and  awakening 
intelligence,  the  world  had  come  to  that  day  of  strife  and 
turmoil  and  general  unrest,  out  of  which  must  come  either 
still  blacker  darkness  or  the  sunlight  of  the  newborn  day. 


"  The  representative  man  of  the 
trajiiition  epoch  which  uihered  in 
the  Nineteenth  Century  — the  most 
tumultuous  and  yet  the  most  fruit- 
Jul  in  the  world's  history." 

William  Millisan  Sloane. 


THE  AGE   OF   NAPOLEON. 
Imperialism. 

(1800-1810.) 


NAPOLEON  BONAPARTE, 

EMPEROR  OF  THE  FRENCH, 
Born  Ajaccio,  Corsica,  Aug.  is,  lybq, 
Died  St.  Helena  Island,  May  3,  iSsr. 


T 


CHAPTER    II. 

WHEN    ONE    MAN    STROVE    TO    MASTER    THE    WORLD. 
(From  1800  to  i8oj.) 

HE  Nineteenth  Century  has  been  famous  for  surmount- 
ing obstacles.  The  ingenuity  of  man  has  never  been 
more  courageously  shown  or  magnificently  demonstrated. 
And  the  lesson  of  contempt  for  obstacles  was  set  by  Napo- 
leon Bonaparte  in  the  year  1800. 

Returning  home  after  an  unsuccessful  campaign  in 
Egypt,  where  he  had  gone  with  a  glittering  but  unpractical 
dream  of  oriental  conquest,  he  found  France  in  a  miserable 
condition,  torn  by  political  dissensions  and  weakened  by 
the  defeats  of  its  armies.  Napoleon  settled  the  first  by 
making  himself  Consul  and  head  of  the  state  ;  he  put  an 
end  to  the  second  by  leading  an  army  over  the  Alps  and 
conquering  Italy.  With  an  audacity  as  reckless  as  it  was 
successful  he  won  the  battle  of  Marengo,  forced  the 
treaties  of  Luneville  and  Amiens,  gave  France  a  new  and 
strong  government,  and,  for  the  first  time  in  many  years, 
brought  peace  to  Europe  and  the  world.  This  was  in 
1802.  In  1806  he  declared  himself  King  of  Italy  and 
Hereditary  Emperor  of  France ;  and,  once  again  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  the  dream  of  the  people  —  "the 
republic  one  and  indivisible  " —  seemed  shattered  forever. 

But  it  was  not  so.  Napoleon  himself  had  shown  the 
world  what  a  man  of  the  people  could  accomplish.     The 

31 


32        THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

very  success  of  his  ambitions  and  his  tyranny  had  strength- 
ened the  faith  of  the  people  in  their  own  abihties,  while 
the  success  of  the  greatest  of  modem  dictators  was,  as  we 
shall  see,  only  temporary.  The  day  of  the  one-man  power 
was  to  be  but  brief  ;  the  power  of  the  people  was  coming 
on  slowly,  but  surely  and  mightily. 

The  success  of  Napoleon  was  the  first  step  toward  his 
downfall.  It  aroused  inv^eterate  enemies  in  all  parts  of  the 
world.  The  lovers  of  liberty  called  him  the  assassin  ;  the 
partisans  of  aristocracy  and  personal  power  combined  for 
the  overthrow  of  this  little  Corsican,  whom  they  declared 
an  upstart  and  a  usurper. 

But,  before  the  downfall  came,  Napoleon  Bonaparte  was 
to  scale  the  dizziest  heights  of  his  ambition.  Guardian 
and  guide  of  France,  for  good  or  for  evil,  dictator  and 
master  of  Europe,  the  influence  and  power  of  the  "  Little 
Corporal,"  as  his  soldiers  loved  to  call  him,  was  far-reach- 
ing—  it  was,  indeed,  even  in  the  earliest  years  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  world-wide.  Europe  acknowledged  it 
from  the  straits  of  Gibraltar  to  the  North  Sea,  and  agreed 
to  the  Treaty  of  Luneville,  and  the  Peace  of  Amiens,  in 
1801  ;  Asia  and  the  islands  of  the  Pacific  knew  it  when 
those  same  treaties  rearranged  the  possessions  of  European 
power  in  the  far  east  and  brought  a  change  of  masters  ; 
Africa  felt  it  when,  with  the  withdrawal  of  French  and 
English  combatants,  Mehemet  Ali,  the  Albanian  tobacco 
merchant,  rose  to  the  supreme  power  in  Egypt  ;  and 
America  recognized  it  when,  in  1 800,  Napoleon,  First  Con- 
sul, put  a  stop  to  the  useless  naval  war  between  France 
and  the  United  States,  and  later,  in  1803,  sold  to  the 
republic,  for  fifteen  millions  of  dollars,  the  vast  stretch  of 


ONE  MAN  STROVE  TO  MASTER  THE  WORLD.    33 

western  territory  known  as  Louisiana,  and  thus  opened  the 
door  for  the  marvellous  growth  of  America  beyond  the 
Mississippi. 

Across  his  highway  to  universal  dominion,  the  goal  of 
the  mighty  ambitions  of  this  young  conqueror  of  thirty- 
three,  England  stood  as  the  only  obstacle  —  the  lion  in  his 
path.  She  had  half  a  million  trained  fighting-men  and  a 
navy  that  was  well-nigh  invincible.  Her  foremost  man 
and  mightiest  leader  was  William  Pitt  the  younger,  the 
great  son  of  an  even  greater  father.  For  one  hundred 
years  England  and  Scotland  had  been  united  under  the 
name  of  Great  Britain  ;  and  the  Union  Jack,  made  from 
the  combined  crowns  of  St.  George  and  St.  Andrew,  had 
been  the  national  flag  of  the  united  kingdoms  —  "the 
meteor  flag  of  England,"  one  of  the  British  poets  of  that 
day  called  it,  as  he  proclaimed  its  invincibleness :  — 

"The  meteor  flag  of  England 
Shall  yet  terrific  burn ; 
Till  danger's  troubled  night  depart, 
And  the  star  of  peace   return." 

"Danger's  troubled  night  "  had  by  no  means  departed, 
even  though,  in  1801,  the  "star  of  peace  "  seemed  for  a 
brief  time  to  have  returned.  On  the  second  day  of  July, 
1800,  thanks  to  the  effort  of  the  great  Pitt,  a  legislative 
union  had  also  been  formed  between  Great  Britain  and  her 
restless  western  island  dependency  of  Ireland.  On  Janu- 
ary 22,  1 801,  the  first  imperial  parliament  of  what  has  ever 
since  been  termed  "the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  "  met  in  London ;  the  shadowy  semblance  of 
liberty  known  as  "the  national  independence  of   Ireland" 


34        THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

was  lost  to  the  never  really  independent  "  Emerald  Isle  ;  " 
but  when  Pitt,  who,  by  this  union  and  his  opposition  to 
Napoleon,  hoped  to  make  Great  Britain  the  controlling  in- 
fluence in  Europe,  sought,  by  a  concession  to  the  Roman 
Catholics,  who  had  long  been  debarred  from  political  power, 
to  weld  the  men  of  the  united  kingdom  more  firmly  to- 
gether, the  king  of  England  refused  to  make  this  liberal 
advance,  and  the  great  minister  resigned  his  office. 

This  stubborn,  though  conscientious,  king  of  England 
was  that  same  George  the  Third  who  had  as  obstinately 
held  out  against  the  prayers  and  protests  of  his  American 
colonists  and  their  English  sympathizers,  and  had  thus 
brought  about  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  1776, 
and  the  final  triumph  and  absolute  independence  of  the 
United  States  in  1783.  As  he  lost  America  when  the 
eighteenth  century  was  drawing  to  its  close,  so,  again,  when 
the  Nineteenth  Century  was  opening,  he  refused  the  wise 
counsels  of  Pitt,  and,  by  his  obstinacy  and  hatred  of  liberty, 
might  have  irretrievably  crippled  England  had  not  the  peo- 
ple of  England  shown  more  common  sense  than  their  big- 
oted and  slow-witted  king.  An  honest  and  well-intentioned 
old  gentleman  was  George  the  Third,  king  of  England ; 
but  he  hated  anything  approaching  popular  independence 
and  freedom  of  thought  or  action,  and  could  never  really 
see  beyond  his  own  short  but  honest  Hanoverian  nose. 

It  became  necessary,  soon,  for  men  of  action  to  look 
much  farther  than  King  George's  nose.  The  peace  of 
Europe,  secured  by  England's  advances  and  by  Napoleon's 
shrewdness,  was  seen  by  all  thinking  men  to  be  but  a  brief 
respite — "a  peace,"  so  one  observer  declared,  "which 
everybody  is  glad  of  and  nobody  is  proud  of."     Even  stu- 


ONE  MAN  STROVE  TO  MASTER  THE  WORLD.    35 

pid  old  King  George  saw  this.  "  It  is  an  experimental 
peace,"  he  said,  "  nothing  else.     But  it  was  unavoidable." 

So  England,  the  lion  in  the  path,  stood  in  the  way  of 
Napoleon's  ambition  and  a  universal  war.  As  for  the 
newly-made  Emperor  of  the  French,  it  may  be  said  that  he 
used  the  brief  respite  to  devote  alike  his  iron  will  and  his 
wonderful  ability  to  the  improvement  of  France,  torn  and 
wasted  by  years  of  revolution  and  of  war.  He  restored 
religion  and  the  Sabbath,  equalized  and  reformed  the  taxes, 
beautified  Paris,  and  improved  the  provinces  by  a  system  of 
public  works,  permitted  the  exiled  royalists  to  return,  and 
framed  a  system  of  just  and  uniform  laws  for  France  — 
the  most  enduring,  so  it  is  claimed,  of  all  the  achievements 
of  Napoleon. 

Underneath  all  this  peace-keeping  and  law-making,  how- 
ever, lay  the  cherished  ambitions  of  this  remarkable  Corsi- 
can.  While  strengthening  his  power  and  benefiting  his 
people  he  was  contemplating  the  conquest  of  all  Europe, 
with  himself  —  "  Napoleon  Imperateur  ! "  —  victor,  master, 
and  ruler. 

But  there  was  a  fly  in  the  amber.  Before  him,  deter- 
mined and  defiant,  stood  England,  obstinate  as  King  George 
himself.  Her  spirit  irritated  this  would-be  dictator,  and  he 
longed  to  see  her  crushed,  and  pushed  out  of  his  way. 

"  Fifteen  millions  of  people  must  give  way  to  forty  mil- 
lions," he  declared,  as  he  confidently  compared  his  million 
fighting  men  and  his  army  of  allies  against  the  half  million 
fighting  strength  of  Great  Britain. 

Skilful  and  wise  as  a  leader  of  men,  and  certain  of  his 
own  strength,  Napoleon  began  to  prepare  for  what  all  men 
knew  to  be  inevitable  —  the  conflict  with  England. 


36        THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

He  cleared  the  decks  for  action  in  all  possible  ways.  On 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  his  will  as  well  as  his  agencies 
were  at  work  ;  for,  while  forcing  alliances  in  Europe,  he 
stirred  up  the  Mahratta  tribes  of  Central  India  against  the 
English  ;  and  having,  by  treaty,  secured  from  Spain  the 
vast  tract  of  Louisiana  in  North  America,  he  crippled 
the  possible  power  of  England  in  America  by  selling  to 
the  republic  of  the  United  States  the  whole  of  Louisiana 
(a  territory  embracing  the  present  states  of  Louisiana, 
Arkansas,  Missouri,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Nebraska,  North  and 
South  Dakota,  Montana,  Oklahoma  and  the  Indian  Terri- 
tory, with  goodly  portions  of  Minnesota,  Colorado,  and 
Wyoming). 

The  price  that  France,  by  the  will  of  Napoleon,  received 
from  this  vast  land  sale  was  but  fifteen  millions  of  dollars 
—  a  regular  "bargain  price,"  so  it  seems  to  us  of  to-day, 
who  know  the  present  resources  of  that  wonderful  western 
region.  But  money,  just  then,  was  no  object  to  Napoleon, 
Emperor  of  the  French.  What  he  desired  was  to  block 
the  path  of  England. 

" This  accession  of  territory  by  the  United  States,"  he 
declared,  "establishes  forever  the  power  of  the  United 
States,  and  gives  to  England  a  maritime  rival  destined  to 
humble  her  pride."  ] 

A  good  deal  of  a  prophet  was  this  undersized  Emperor 
of  the  French  ;  even  more  astute  and  far-seeing  than  were 
many  of  those  who  profited  by  his  hatred  of  England. 

Thomas  Jefferson  was  president  of  the  United  States. 
The  man  whose  hand  drew  up  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence could  find  no  clause  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  giving  him  the  power  to  thus  "expand"  the 


ONE  MAN  STROVE  TO  MASTER  THE  WORLD.    ^y 

territory  of  the  republic  by  purchase  or  accession.  As 
other  presidents,  however,  have  done  since  his  day,  he  con- 
sented to  the  transfer  because  he  behcved  it  to  be  the  will 
of  the  people.  So  the  first  experience  of  the  United 
States  in  territorial  expansion  became  fact  ;  patriots  who 
feared  for  the  republic  for  this  "misconstruing  the  Con- 
stitution "  have  long  since  been  proven  false  prophets  ;  and 
to-day,  after  a  century  of  ownership,  "the  purchase  of 
Louisiana,"  so  Dr.  Edward  Channing  declares,  "is  shown  to 
have  been  one  of  the  most  fortunate  events  in  the  history 
of  the  United  States." 

Napoleon  had  shrewdly  seen  that  if  France  retained 
Louisiana  she  would  be  a  menace  and  rival  to  the  United 
States,  who  would  thus  be  forced  into  an  alliance  with 
England.  "From  the  day  that  France  takes  possession  of 
New  Orleans,"  one  American  statesman  had  declared, 
"  she  becomes  our  mutual  and  habitual  enemy.  From  that 
moment  we  must  marry  ourselves  to  the  British  fleet  and 
nation."  Napoleon  saw  this  ;  he  quickly  made  Louisiana 
American  by  sale  and  annexation,  and  thus  "  put  a  spoke 
in  England's  wheel." 

Then  he  gathered,  at  Boulogne,  a  great  fleet  and  army 
for  the  invasion  of  England.  "  Let  us  but  be  masters  of 
the  channel  for  six  hours,"  he  said,  "and  we  are  masters 
of  the  world," 

But  the  mastery  of  the  English  Channel  was  not  to  be 
secured  by  the  navy  of  France  :  indeed,  the  "  ruler  of  the 
waves  "  was  not  to  be  the  self-made  emperor  of  the  French. 
England,  who  had  already,  by  her  victories  at  Brest  and 
Aboukir,  driven  the  tricolor  flag  from  the  sea,  and  ruined 
the  foreign  trade  of  France,  was  too  formidable  an  ad\-er- 


38         THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

sary  for  Napoleon's  uncertain  fleets.  The  mariners  of  Eng- 
land were  still  the  unconquered  defenders  of  that  island 
kingdom,  of  which  her  favorite  poet,  Campbell,  had  declared 

"  Britannia  needs  no  bulwarks, 
No  towers  along  the  steep ; 
Her  march  is  o'er  the  mountain-waves, 
Her  home  is  on  the  deep." 

And  Napoleon,  as  had  the  Spaniards  of  the  Armada  in 
the  days  of  "good  Queen  Bess,"  found  Britannia  very 
much  "at  home  "  when  he  called. 

In  1803  the  short  peace  of  the  world  was  broken. 
England  refused  to  give  up  the  island  of  Malta  in  the 
Mediterranean,  which  Napoleon  desired  as  a  base  of  action 
for  a  possibly  new  invasion  of  Egypt  and  the  east.  An- 
gered at  thus  being  thwarted,  Napoleon  made  British  obsti- 
nacy the  cause  of  conflict. 

"  Malta  or  war  !  "  he  declared  ;  and,  demanding  the  sup- 
port of  his  enforced  allies  of  Spain,  Holland,  Switzerland, 
and  Italy,  he  bent  all  his  energies  to  the  conquest  of 
England,  the  recovery  of  Malta,  and  the  victorious  inva- 
sion of  Egypt  and  the  East.  As  the  first  step  in  this  new 
career  of  conquest  he  commanded  his  fleets  to  rendezvous  at 
Boulogne,  that  they  might  sweep  the  British  from  the 
waters  of.  the  channel,  and  clear  the  way  for  his  armies  to 
invade  England. 

But  England  was  ready.  A  great  sailor  was  in  com- 
mand of  her  navy,  Horatio  Nelson,  admiral  of  the  fleet  and 
conqueror  of  the  Nile.  Napoleon,  with  his  two  thousand 
vessels  and  his  invading  army  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  men,  could  neither  decoy,  break  through,  nor  con- 


ONE   MAN    STROVE   TO    MASTER   THE   WORLD.        39 

quer  the  channel  fleet  of  England.  He  tried  the  first,  un- 
successfully; for  Nelson,  led  away  with  some  of  his  battle- 
ships into  the  stern  chase  of  a  French  fleet  across  the 
Atlantic,  saw  through  the  emperor's  trick  in  the  very  nick 
of  time,  and,  racing  back  again,  got  in  just  ahead  of  the 
allied  French  and  Spanish  fleet,  and  forced  it  back  to  the 
shelter  of  the  French  forts.  He  tried  the  second,  unsuccess- 
fully; for  he  could  not  weaken  the  cordon  of  British  battle- 
ships that  guarded  the  Channel  shores.  He  tried  the  third, 
unsuccessfully,  for  Nelson,  chasing  the  allied  fleets  of  France 
and  Spain  into  Cadiz,  lured  the  French  admiral,  Villeneuve, 
out  to  battle,  by  purposely  weakening  his  own  fleet,  and 
then,  closing  in  upon  the  French  ships  off  the  Cape  of 
Trafalgar,  he  ran  up  on  his  flagship  the  famous  signal, 
"  England  expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty,"  did  his  own 
gloriously  by  crushing  the  whole  hostile  fleet  in  a  wonder- 
ful sea-fight,  and  then  fell,  mortally  wounded,  in  the  very 
hour  of  victory. 

This  remarkable  sea  triumph  was  won  by  England  on 
the  twenty-first  of  October,  1805.  It  broke  forever  the 
naval  power  of  France,  overthrew  all  Napoleon's  deep- 
laid  plans  for  the  invasion  and  conquest  of  England,  and 
turned  his  attention  to  the  easier  victory  of  the  allied  armies 
of  Europe,  which  were  already  gathering  to  crush  the  great 
commander. 

At  the  close  of  the  year  1 805  Russia,  England,  Austria, 
and  Sweden  stood  united  for  this  endeavor.  Ranged  on 
the  side  of  France  were  Spain,  Holland,  Italy,  Switzerland, 
Prussia,  and  the  smaller  German  states,  mostly  unwilling 
allies,  but  cowed  into  union  by  the  master  power  of  Napo- 
leon.    England,   still   guarding    her  own  boundaries  from 


40        THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

invasion,  furnished  the  money  to  back  up  the  fight  to  which 
Austria  and  Russia  marched  with  mighty  armies  —  at  least 
three  hundred  thousand  men.  Once  again  the  world  was 
in  the  full  sweep  of  terrible  war. 

The  peace  and  war  which  Napoleon  could  so  easily  force 
as  his  needs  or  his  desires  dictated,  again,  as  in  the  case  of 
his  earlier  triumphs,  affected,  either  directly  or  indirectly, 
the  whole  civilized  world. 

In  India  the  "wild  Mahratta  battle,"  of  which  Tennyson 
speaks  in  "  Locksley  Hall,"  and  which  had  been  fanned  into 
fury  by  the  "seeking  on  "  of  France,  raged  hotly  until  tri- 
umphantly closed  in  1 803  by  the  intrepid  English  general 
Wellesley,  afterwards  made  famous  under  his  title  of  Wel- 
lington ;  on  either  side  of  the  globe  possessions  changed 
hand,  by  conflict  or  treaty  :  as  when  the  Danish  West  Indies 
were  captured  by  the  British  in  1801  ;  the  French  recap- 
turing from  the  British  their  possessions  on  the  West  Afri- 
can coast  ;  Egypt,  evacuated  by  its  British  holders  after 
the  peace  of  Amiens ;  and  the  Dutch  given  again,  in  1803, 
their  far-off  African  colony  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  to 
be,  for  a  hundred  years,  the  bone  of  contention  as  Dutch 
and  English,  Boer  and  Briton,  struggled  for  South  African 
supremacy. 

These  were  but  a  few  of  the  changes  witnessed  during 
the  first  five  years  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  when,  by  the 
restless  energy  of  one  indomitable  man,  the  whole  world 
seemed  shifting  positions  in  a  great  international  game  of 
"stage-coach." 

In  Europe  the  old  "  Holy  Roman  Empire  " —  never  really 
Roman  and  always  far  from  holy  —  was  forever  abolished  ; 
Switzerland  and  North   Italy  were  made  into  a  chain  of 


ONE  MAN  STROVE  TO  MASTER  THE  WORLD.   4 1 

republics  ;  Germany  was  shuffled  like  a  pack  of  cards  till 
few  could  tell  just  where  or  what  the  German  boundaries 
were ;  Italy  became  all  French,  or  was  dominated  by 
France  ;  and,  of  the  forty-eight  free  imperial  cities  of  Ger- 
many, only  six  retained  their  ancient  rights.  As  France, 
fattening  with  conquest,  swelled  itself  across  the  Rhine, 
Portugal,  worsted  in  a  vain  conflict  with  Spain,  and  backed 
up  by  France,  found  herself  shorn  of  provinces  at  home 
and  colonies  in  South  America ;  while,  of  all  Europe,  no 
state,  in  1805,  found  itself  untouched  or  unchanged  save 
Russia  and  England. 

In  Russia  a  new  czar  had  come  to  the  throne,  —  Alex- 
ander the  First,  —  destined  to  be  a  prominent  figure  in 
Europe's  troubled  story.  And,  in  England,  the  never- 
absent  spark  of  Irish  rebellion  fanned  itself  into  a  flame  in 
1803,  when  Robert  Emmet,  urged  on  by  Napoleon's  half 
promises,  headed  a  revolt  that  came  to  speedy  grief,  cost- 
ing the  young  Irish  patriot  his  life,  and  giving  to  the  world 
a  famous  speech  and  yet  more  famous  poem.  That  poem 
is,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  pathetic  of  the  tender  "melo- 
dies "  of  Thomas  Moore  : 

"  Oh  1   breathe  not  his  name,  let  it  sleep  in  the  shade, 
Where  cold  and  unhonored  his  relics  are  laid ; 
Sad,  silent,  and  dark  be  the  tears  that  we  shed, 
As  the  night  dew  that  falls  on  the  grass  o'er  his  head  1 

But  the  night  dew  that  falls,  though  in  silence  it  weeps, 
Shall  brighten  ^\^th  verdure  the  grave  where  he  sleeps ; 
And  the  tear  that  we  shed,  though  in  secret  it  rolls, 
Shall  long  keep  his  memory  green  in  our  souls." 

Everywhere  throughout  the  world,  where  the  story  of 
American  liberty  and  the  French  overthrow  of  kings  had 


42         THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

spread,  this  desire  for  independence  that  cost  Emmet  his 
hfe  was  stirring  uneasily  in  these  opening  years  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century.  From  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  Cape 
Horn  the  sullen  submission  which  for  three  centuries  the 
enslaved  people  of  South  America  had  yielded  to  cruel  and 
selfish  Spain  was  smouldering  in  discontent ;  and  the  val- 
ley of  the  Mississippi  opened  by  Napoleon's  shrewd  "  spoke 
in  England's  wheel,"  to  the  hand  and  ownership  of  Ameri- 
can pioneers,  took  on  a  new  life  of  energy  and  endeavor. 
Poland,  dismembered  by  the  greedy  powers  of  Russia, 
Prussia,  and  Austria,  recognized  in  Napoleon  a  possible 
liberator,  and  stretched  out  to  him  appealing  hands ;  in 
Canada,  the  national  antagonism  between  French  and  Eng- 
lish seemed  ready  to  break  into  open  trouble,  while  Greece, 
that  ancient  home  of  liberty,  chafing  under  its  subjection 
to  a  horde  of  Asiatic  aliens,  felt  the  dawning  inspiration 
of  independence,  and  awoke  to  a  new  vision  of  reviving  its 
old  nationality. 

How  much  the  vigor  of  America  in  the  Mediterranean 
aroused  the  downtrodden  patriots  of  Europe  to  a  sense  of 
what  a  free  nation  may  accomplish,  it  is  not  possible  to 
say;  but  certainly  the  appearance  of  the  victorious  flag  of 
the  young  western  republic  floating  above  the  conquered 
strongholds  of  African  despotism  must  have  been  an  in- 
spiring as  it  was  an  unusual  sight. 

For  years  the  nations  that  traded  along  the  shores  of 
the  Mediterranean  had  been  at  the  mercy  of  a  piratical 
confederation,  known  as  the  "  Barbary  Powers,"  because 
they  included  a  line  of  vassal  states  founded  by  a  terrible 
Turkish  pirate  named  Barbarrossa  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
Wars  and  troubles  at  home  had  kept  the  civilized  and  com- 


ONK  MAN  STROVE  TO  MASTER  THE  WORLD.   43 

mercial  states  of  Europe  from  brcakinj,^  up  this  nest  of 
African  pirates,  though  now  and  then  some  state,  stung  to 
madness  by  the  depredations  of  these  sea-thieves  upon  her 
commerce,  would  swoop  down  upon  their  ports  to  punish 
their  sea-crimes.  For  the  most  part,  however,  European 
traders  thought  it  more  prudent  to  purchase  the  freedom  of 
entrance  into  and  safe  saihng  over  the  Mediterranean  by 
concession  or  tribute  than  to  use  the  war-ships  and  sailors 
needed  elsewhere.  So,  for  years,  the  Barbary  pirates  fat- 
tened on  tribute,  presents,  or  booty,  playing  off  the  rivalries 
of  France  and  England  against  each  other,  and  proving 
themselves  the  highwaymen  and  scourge  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean waters. 

Into  this  disgraceful  connivance  with  crime  the  United 
States,  too,  had  been  forced  by  the  exigencies  of  its  slender 
commerce  and  the  weakness  of  its  navy.  But  when,  in 
1800,  Captain  Bainbridge  of  the  United  States  frigate 
"Washington"  stoutly  withstood  the  arbitrary  demands  of 
the  Algerian  dey,  and  when,  following  this,  the  pasha  of 
Tripoli  demanded  an  increase  of  tribute,  and,  upon  its  re- 
fusal, hewed  down  the  flagstaff  before  the  American  con- 
sulate. Congress  acted  at  once,  and  despatched  an  American 
squadron  to  punish  the  Barbary  pirates.  This  was  done  so 
effectually  under  the  leadership  of  such  American  naval 
heroes  as  Preble  and  Decatur,  Bainbridge  and  Truxton, 
Rodgers  and  Dale,  that  an  effectual  stop  was  put  to  this 
shameful  tribute  to  piracy  ;  and  the  laurels  won  by  the 
American  navy  gave  to  it  a  value  that  was  recognized,  for 
the  first  time,  by  the  powers  of  Europe,  and  was  made 
apparent  to  those  critics  at  home  who  would  cast  discredit 
on  American  enterprise  abroad  —  as  home  critics  of  Ameri- 


44        THE   STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

can  enterprise  there  have  ever  been,  from  the  days  of  Wash- 
ington to  those  of  McKinley. 

America  indeed  —  or  the  republic  of  the  United  States, 
rather,  to  which  has  been  given  pre-eminently  the  title  of 
America  —  was  just  at  that  time  in  a  critical  mood.  The 
government  under  the  Constitution  had  become  already  a 
subject  for  party  dispute  and  political  rancor,  and  the  chief 
duty  of  the  American  presidents  seemed  to  be  to  keep  the 
republic  out  of  the  wars  and  brawls  into  which  hot  heads 
and  French  intriguers  would  have  forced  it.  John  Adams 
saved  it  from  a  needless  war  with  France ;  Jefferson  kept 
it  from  embroiling  itself  in  European  complications  ;  and 
both  these  men,  though  bitter  in  an  unsparing  rivalry, 
sought  to  follow  the  wise  advice  of  Washington,  and  "  steer 
clear  of  permanent  alliances  with  any  portion  of  the  foreign 
world." 

"Why,"  asked  Washington,  "should  we  quit  our  own  to 
stand  upon  foreign  ground  ?  Why,  by  interweaving  our 
destiny  with  that  of  any  part  of  Europe,  should  we  entangle 
our  peace  and  prosperity  in  the  toils  of  European  ambition, 
rivalship,  interest,  humor,  and  caprice  .-'  " 

It  was  along  this  careful  course  that  both  Adams  the 
Federahst  and  Jefferson  the  Democrat  sought  to  steer  the 
ship  of  the  Union,  just  launched  upon  the  sea  of  National 
Independence  ;  and,  in  spite  of  party  strife  and  political 
passion,  this  policy,  so  necessary  to  a  new  and  united 
nation,  kept  the  repubhc  from  wasting  war,  through  the 
opening  years  of  a  warlike  country,  and  set  itself  to  the 
development  of  a  continent  fruitful  of  marvellous  possi- 
bilities. 

These  possibilities  were  only  beginning  to  be  appreciated. 


ONE  MAN  STROVE  TO  MASTER  THE  WORLD.    45 

So  little  did  the  Atlantic  States  know  of  the  value  of  the 
Louisiana  purchase  that  certain  "  statesmen  "  suggested 
the  sale  of  the  annexed  acres  to  some  "friendly  power." 
The  Northwest,  only  partially  won  from  savage  Indians 
and  wandering  traders,  was  almost  an  unexplored  region, 
and  slow  methods  of  communication  kept  even  the  sections 
of  the  settled  East  from  intimate  acquaintance  and  asso- 
ciation. 

Steam  navigation  on  land  and  water  were  still  but  un- 
formed and  impracticable  schemes  in  the  busy  brains  of 
inventors ;  electricity  had  not  yet  even  begun  its  marvellous 
race  with  time,  and  postal  facilities  were  scarcely  facilities 
at  all.  Savings  banks  were  not  inaugurated  in  England 
until  1804,  and  the  social  conditions  of  England  were  such 
as  even  Englishmen  in  1900  can  have  scarce  a  conception  of. 

England,  the  most  enlightened  of  civilized  countries,  was 
in  so  low  a  social  condition  that  her  working-people  were 
little  better  than  slaves,  and  her  laws  seemed  made  only 
for  those  who  owned  the  land  ;  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  crimes  or  breaches  of  law  were  punished  with  the 
death-penalty,  while  prisoners,  chained  outside  the  prison- 
gate,  begged  from  the  passers-by  ;  discipline  in  the  army 
and  navy  was  largely  maintained  by  the  whip  ;  and  the  in- 
dustries of  the  land  were  carried  forward  only  by  the  most 
exhausting  labor,  and  with  the  most  primitive  tools. 

If  this  was  the  case  with  England,  what  must  have  been 
the  condition  of  the  rest  of  the  world  when  all  Europe  was 
girding  itself  for  war,  and  Napoleon  Bonaparte  seated  him- 
self upon  a  throne  .-* 

That  world  was  little  better  than  a  vast  slave-pen.  The 
Russian  peasants  were  serfs  ;  so,  too,  were  nearly  all  those 


46        THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

of  Austria  and  Prussia.  Women  and  children  worked  in 
coal-pits,  harnessed  to  wagons  or  weighed  down  with  bas- 
kets, forgotten  by  the  law,  while  morality  was  as  low  as 
manners  were  coarse  and  brutal,  and  all  the  world  de- 
manded not  only  peace,  but  reform. 

The  time  for  both  these  blessings  was  not  yet  ripe. 
Indeed,  it  needed  still  wider  and  more  wasting  wars  to 
awaken  good  men  to  see  the  needs  of  their  brethren,  and 
find  a  way  to  meet  them  ;  for  war,  after  all,  is  what  has 
brought  the  nations  closer  to  each  other  than  ever  has  a 
do-nothing  peace,  and  war  was  to  come  with  a  vengeance. 

For  when,  by  Nelson's  victory  at  Trafalgar  in  October, 
1805,  the  emperor  of  the  French  was  forced  to  give  up 
forever  his  dream  of  the  conquest  of  England,  and  to  yield 
his  supremacy  on  the  sea,  he  turned  all  his  masterly 
genius,  and  all  his  terrible  powers  of  concentration,  against 
his  enemies  on  land.  At  the  head  of  a  vast  army  of 
Frenchmen  and  their  allies,  he  hurled  himself  on  the  great 
wall  of  armed  men  which  Russia  and  Austria,  with  the 
money  help  of  England,  had  raised  up  against  him,  and  set 
himself  to  break,  scatter,  and  destroy  what  is  now  known 
in  history  as  the  "  third  coalition  against  France." 


I 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE    GRIP    OF    "THE    MAN    ON    HORSEBACK." 
{From  iSo^  to  iSio. ) 

T  was  literally  to  hurl  himself  against  the  forces  of 
Russia  and  Austria,  that  Napoleon,  emperor  and  sol- 
dier, marched  across  the  French  border  in  1805. 

With  a  rapidity  that  was  startling  and  a  strategy  that 
was  baffling,  he  flung  the  veterans  who  followed  his  eagles, 
first  against  one  power,  and  then  against  another.  Austria, 
torn  and  crippled  by  his  fierce  assault,  went  down  in  de- 
feat at  Ulm  ;  and  Russia,  confronted  by  this  wonderful 
soldier,  in  what  is  known  as  "the  battle  of  the  Three 
Emperors""  at  Austerlitz,  fled  from  the  field  in  retreat, 
while,  through  the  clouds,  there  burst  upon  the  exultant 
Frenchmen  that  stream  of  light  forever  famous  as  "the 
Sun  of  Austerlitz." 

That  sun  shone  full  upon  Napoleon  with  a  blaze  of  glory. 
It  displayed  him  as  the  foremost  man  of  all  the  world,  and, 
for  a  season,  all  the  world  bent  in  acknowledgment  or  sub- 
mission to  this  self-made  master  of  men.  The  "third  coali- 
tion "  was  shattered  at  a  blow.  Russia,  defeated  and  flying, 
assented  to  one  of  those  enforced  treaties  called  a  "mili- 
tary convention  ; "  Austria  hastened  to  accept  a  truce ; 
and  Napoleon's  outstretched  hand  drew  more  "acquired" 
territory  within  the  expanding  boundaries  of  France. 

England,  thus  left  alone,  found  even  her  money  unavail- 

47 


48        THE   STORY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

able  to  purchase  victories.  The  battle  of  Austerlitz  re- 
made Europe  ;  for  the  peace  of  Pressburg,  signed  the  day- 
after  Christmas,  1805,  gave  the  most  of  the  Christmas 
gifts  to  triumphant  France,  and  made  the  brothers  and 
sisters  of  Napoleon,  almost  in  spite  of  themselves,  kings, 
queens,  or  princes  over  dismembered  Europe. 

"  Roll  up  that  map,"  said  Pitt,  the  great  English  states- 
man, whom  Napoleon  had  checkmated,  as  he  pointed  to 
the  map  of  Europe  hanging  on  the  wall  ;  "  it  will  not  be 
wanted  these  ten  years."  And  then  he  died,  —  "  killed  by 
Austerlitz,"  so  the  verdict  ran. 

But  the  death  of  Pitt,  which  men  felt  to  be  England's 
greatest  loss,  proved  in  the  end  a  blessing ;  for  rivals 
joined  hands  and  parties  united,  to  help  England  to  the 
stand  which  Pitt  desired  her  to  take,  —  the  main  bulwark 
against  the  ambitions  of  Napoleon,  —  and  thus  to  make 
true  the  noble  declaration  of  Pitt  after  Trafalgar :  "  Eng- 
land has  saved  herself  by  her  courage;  she  will  save 
Europe  by  her  example." 

But  for  a  while  it  seemed  impossible  to  save  Europe. 
Napoleon's  triumph  at  Austerlitz  had  brought  Europe  to 
his  feet  ;  he  drew  away  all  the  smaller  German  states  from 
Prussia  by  establishing  what  he  called  the  "  Confederation 
of  the  Rhine  ;"  and  when  Prussia,  in  despair,  joined  again 
with  Russia  and  England  in  the  Fourth  Coalition  against 
France,  Napoleon  once  more,  by  his  rapid  and  overwhelm- 
ing tactics,  flung  himself  against  the  Prussians  at  Jena  and 
Auerstadt,  defeated  them  before  their  allies  had  time  to 
move  to  their  support,  and  then,  from  his  headquarters  at 
Berlin,  swooped  down  upon  the  Russians  at  Eylau  and 
Friedland,  and   whipped    them    so   completely  that    they 


THE   GRIP   OF    "THE    MAN    ON    HORSEBACK."        49 

were  glad  to  sue  for  peace,  and  agree  to  the  treaty  of  Tilsit 
in  July,  1807.  Then,  joining  with  France  the  conqueror, 
in  an  enforced  union  against  England,  Russia  likewise  be- 
came the  tool  of  France,  and  Napoleon,  now  at  the  pin- 
nacle of  his  power,  was  the  acknowledged  master  and 
dictator  of  Europe. 
,.  Knowing  that  he  could  not  successfully  meet  England 

JL  on  the  sea,  and  that  the  invasion  of  that  plucky  island 
^^^^kingdom  was  neither  wise  nor  promising.  Napoleon  deter- 
mined to  starve  out  his  most  stubborn  foe  by  a  commercial 
ITT.  blockade  of  her  ports.  \  All  nations  under  French  control 
or  in  alliance  with  France  were  forbidden  doing  any  busi- 
ness with  England.  All  British  ships  were  declared  sub- 
ject to  capture  ;  and  the  ships  of  any  nation  that  attempted 
to  trade  with  England  were  declared  forfeit  to  France. 

By  this  tyrannical  decree  Napoleon  hoped  to  humble 
England  on  the  ocean,  and  throw  the  sea-trade  of  the  world 
Q  into  the  hands  of  England's  foeman  and  rival,  the  repub- 
lic of  the  United  States!^  As  a  result,  American  com- 
merce greatly  increased.  Her  ships  and  sailors  were  on 
all  waters,  and,  for  a  time,  American  vessels  were  the  only 
neutral  ships  on  the  ocean  doing  a  profitable  trade  with  all 
the  nations  of  Europe. 

England,  of  course,  retaliated,  and  struck  back  at  this 
union  of  all  Europe  —  all  the  civilized  world,  in  fact,  against 
her.  She  issued  what  were  called  "Orders  in  Council  "  — 
that  is,  the  king's  orders  approved  by  his  councillors  — 
prohibiting  the  trade  of  any  neutral  nation  with  France. 
This  was  a  direct  blow  at  America  ;  for,  with  France  say- 
ing that  no  one  should  trade  with  luigland,  and  with  Eng- 
land  declaring   that    no    one    should    trade   with    France, 


50        THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

America,  as  the  only  neutral  trader  on  the  sea,  was  in  a 
"bad  box." 

England  was  still  the  mistress  of  the  seas.  Her  war- 
ships patrolled  the  coasts  ;  her  captains  stopped  Ameri- 
can vessels  whenever  sighted,  and,  claiming  the  right  of 
search,  took  off  any  man  that  was  an  Englishman  or  that 
looked  like  an  Englishman. 

This  complicated  things  sadly.  It  seemed  to  Americans 
that,  what  with  F"rench  "Decrees"  and  English  "Orders 
in  Council,"  the  American  carrying-trade  was  likely  to  be 
altogether  destroyed  ;  so  in  1807  Thomas  Jefferson,  presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  by  the  advice  and  consent  of 
Congress,  proclaimed  an  "Embargo,"  forbidding  American 
vessels  to  sail  to  any  foreign  port,  —  French  or  English  or 
European,  —  and  ordering  all  foreign  vessels  to  remain  in 
port.  So  far  did  the  strong  hand  of  Napoleon  stretch 
throughout  the  world. 

Such  things,  however,  could  not  long  continue.  Already 
signs  of  revolt  against  the  tyranny  of  Napoleon  were  ap- 
parent in  Europe.  The  first  spoke  in  Napoleon's  wheel 
was  inserted  by  those  from  whom  such  action  might  least 
be  expected  —  the  slow-going,  non-progressive  nations  of 
Spain  and  Portugal. 

Almost  from  the  start,  Spain  and  Portugal  had  been  the 
most  unquestioning  in  yielding  obedience  to  the  French 
conqueror.  Portugal  had  helped  him  in  all  his  efforts  to 
humble  England,  and  Spain  had  placed  both  her  ships  and 
soldiers  at  his  command.  They  deserved  the  best  treat- 
ment at  his  hands  ;  but,  instead.  Napoleon  looked  upon 
them  with  contempt  ;  and  without  their  consent,  without 
even   consulting  their  wishes,  he  suddenly  concluded  that 


THE   GRIP   OF   "THE    MAN   ON    HORSEBACK."  5  I 

the  coasts  of  Spain  and  Portugal  were  altogether  too  handy 
lor  English  ships  ;  and  that,  as  Portugal  seemed  unduly  dis- 
posed to  lean  upon  England,  and  as  English  armies  might 
land  on  the  coasts  of  the  Peninsula,  and  easily  invade 
France  from  the  south,  it  was  best,  so  he  decided,  to  order 
the  kings  of  Spain  and  Portugal  from  their  thrones,  and 
put  one  of  his  numerous  brothers  in  their  place. 

To  decide  was  to  act  with  Napoleon,  Emperor  of  the 
P^rench.  At  once  he  invaded  Spain  with  an  army  of  one 
hundred  thousand  men.  Joseph,  the  eldest  brother  of 
Napoleon,  was  declared  king  of  Spain  ;  and  Portugal  was 
wiped  from  the  map.  The  kings  of  the  two  nations  were 
kidnapped  or  driven  into  exile  ;  and  of  course,  as  possessor 
of  both  thrones.  Napoleon  also  claimed  possession  of  all 
the  colonies  of  both  Spain  and  Portugal  —  which  meant 
all  of  South  America  and  a  goodly  part  of  North  America. 
Even  in  this  did  Napoleon  scheme  to  better  himself,  be- 
cause of  the  loss  of  Louisiana,  and,  besides  being  dictator 
of  Europe,  to  become  master  of  the  World.  In  all  his- 
tory there  never  was  quite  so  mighty  a  burglar  nor,  in  his 
peculiar  line,  quite  so  remarkable  a  man  ! 

But  when  he  tried  to  force  the  bit  into  the  mouth  of 
Spain  he  made  the  mistake  of  his  life.  It  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end.  Already  in  Germany  this  protest  against 
the  tyrant  had  begun.  When  kings  and  princes  bent  in 
surrender  or  subservience  to  Napoleon  it  was  a  noble  and 
patriotic  woman,  Louisa,  queen  of  Prussia,  who  dared  the 
wrath  of  the  conqueror,  and  stirred  to  life,  in  the  hearts  of 
the  German  people,  the  passion  for  liberty  and  union. 

But  all  first  attempts  at  resistance  failed  ;  and  it  seemed 
as  if,  in  no  land,  was  successful  opposition  possible. 


52        THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

It  was,  however,  this  invasion  of  the  heretofore  friendly 
territory  of  Spain  and  Portugal  that  aroused  retaliation, 
drew  the  attention  of  the  emperor  from  more  important 
matters,  weakened  his  army,  sapped  his  resources,  and 
placed  in  his  rear  a  foe  instead  of  a  friend. 

Then  England  saw  her  opportunity.  Taking  advantage 
of  the  popular  rising  in  Spain  against  the  abductor  of  its 
king  and  the  plea  for  help  that  came  from  Portugal,  Eng- 
land hastened  to  the  assistance  of  the  people  of  the  Penin- 
sula, and  in  the  summer  of  1808  sent  an  army  into  the 
south  under  command  of  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  Napoleon's 
later  rival  and  final  conqueror. 

It  was  a  small  army  —  only  ten  thousand  men  ;  but  it 
became  a  rallying-point  for  patriotic  Spain  and  Portugal 
united  against  Napoleon.  This  time  England  came  as  the 
deliverer  ;  and,  as  to  a  deliverer,  the  people  upon  whom 
a  French  tyrant,  backed  by  a  French  army,  had  forced  a 
French  king,  responded  heartily, 

"  Bonaparte,"  said  one  eminent  British  statesman  (the 
English  never  called  him  anything  but  Bonaparte  if  they 
could  help  it),  "  Bonaparte  has  yet  to  learn  what  it  is  to 
combat  a  people  who  are  animated  by  one  spirit  against 
him."  That  spirit  of  union  against  a  common  foe  inspired, 
also,  aU  Englishmen,  however  they  differed  in  politics  or 
religion.  In  the  rescue  of  Spain  they  saw  their  first  real 
opportunity  ;  "  never,"  they  declared,  "  had  so  happy  an 
opportunity  existed  for  Britain  to  strike  a  bold  stroke  for 
the  rescue  of  the  world." 

To  attempt  that  stroke,  Wellesley's  ten  thousand  men 
landed  in  Portugal  ;  the  patriots  flocked  to  his  standard  ; 
the  insurrection  against  Napoleon'3  blunder  spread  rapidly; 


THE   GRIP   OF   "THE   MAN   ON    HORSEBACK."  53 

braced  up  by  the  support  of  England,  the  Spaniards  won  a 
victory  over  the  French  at  Baylen,  and  Wellesley  drove 
them  out  of  Portugal,  and  forced  one  of  their  armies  to 
surrender. 

It  was  the  first  disastrous  blow  that  Napoleon,  secure  in 
his  own  triumphs,  had  felt.  It  aroused  him  to  instant  action. 
Securing  himself  from  annoyance  and  attack  in  the  rear 
by  strengthening  his  alliance  with  the  Russian  Czar,  and 
weakening  Prussia  by  driving  into  exile  the  Baron  Stein, 
its  one  great  statesman  who  dared  withstand  his  tyranny, 
Napoleon,  in  November,  1 808,  invaded  Spain  with  a  great 
army  of  over  two  hundred  thousand  men,  and,  in  his  usual 
vigorous  style,  prepared  to  clean  the  English  out  of  Spain 
and  crush  the  insurrection. 

This  was  no  easy  task.  The  emperor  of  the  French, 
whose  presence  alone  at  the  head  of  his  troops  was  equal 
to  an  additional  army,  might  scatter  the  insurgents  and 
defeat  the  English  ;  but,  even  his  most  strenuous  effort  to 
correct  the  mistake  he  had  made  of  turning  Spain  from  an 
ally  into  a  foeman  could  not  accomplish  his  ends.  He 
broke  through  the  Spanish  lines,  captured  Madrid,  and 
again  set  up  his  puppet  brother  as  king  ;  but  he  had  lost 
the  support  of  the  people  of  Spain.  He  forced  the  English, 
who  were  hastening  to  the  relief  of  Madrid,  to  fall  back  in 
retreat;  and  at  Corunna,  in  January,  1809,  he  drove  their 
army  from  Spain  ;  but  the  English  rallied  and  returned  to 
annoy  him.  Wellesley,  victorious  at  Talavera,  became 
Vicount  Wellington,  while  the  retreat  from  Corunna  gave 
to  the  world,  in  Wolfe's  "  Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore,"  a 
poem  that  will  outlast  all  the  questionable  glories  of  French 
victory  and  tyranny  : 


54        THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

"  Not  a  drum  was  heard,  not  a  funeral  note, 
As  his  corse  to  the  ramparts  we  hurried ; 
Not  a  soldier  discharged  his  farewell  shot 
O'er  the  grave  where  our  hero  we  buried. 


But  half  of  our  heavy  task  was  done, 
•  When  the  clock  struck  the  hour  for  retiring; 
And  we  heard  the  distant  and  random  gun 
That  the  foe  was  sullenly  firing. 

Slowly  and  sadly  we  laid  him  down 

From  the  field  of  his  fame  fresh  and  gory; 

We  carved  not  a  line,  we  raised  not  a  stone, 
But  we  left  him  alone  in  his  glory." 

But  England  never  forgot  him,  and  in  due  time  he  was 
mightily  avenged. 

Thinking  he  had  put  an  end  to  the  Spanish  defiance  of 
his  authority,  and  to  England's  aid  to  Spain,  Napoleon 
returned  to  Paris  to  prepare  for  a  new  war  with  Austria, 
stirred  to  a  fresh  resentment  against  the  all-devouring 
Corsican. 

His  appetite,  indeed,  had  now  become  insatiate.  He 
proposed  with  the  Czar  of  Russia,  of  whom  he  had  made 
an  ally,  to  divide  Europe,  if  not  the  world,  between  them. 
But  his  very  success,  the  success  of  the  French  people, 
and  the  knowledge  of  what  the  people,  and  not  their  kings, 
may  accomplish,  was  impelling  the  patriotism  of  Germany 
to  assert  itself. 

For  his  own  selfish  ends  Napoleon  now  picked  a  quarrel 
with  Austria.  That  slow-going  and  king-ruled  land  pro- 
tested, but  to  no  purpose  ;  whereupon,  seeing  how  valiantly 
Spain  had  turned  upon  the  conqueror,  though  in  a  fruitless 
defiance,  Austria  took  a  lesson  from  Spain  and  boldly 
defied  the  dictator. 


THE  GRIP   OF    "THE   MAN   ON    HORSEBACK."         55 

Charles,  Archduke  of  Austria,  son  and  brother  of  its 
emperors,  appealed  to  the  Germans  of  Europe  to  help 
Austria  in  her  struggle  against  the  tryant.  "  Austria 
fights  not  only  for  her  own  autonomy,"  he  declared  ; 
"she  takes  the  sword  for  the  independence  and  honor  of 
Germany." 

But  Germany  was  not  yet  ready  to  prove  her  manhood. 
Prussia,  overawed  by  Russia,  dared  not  help ;  and  the 
"assorted  Icjt "  of  little  princes  who  had  linked  themselves 
to  Napoleon's  grandeur  in  his  enforced  Confederation  of 
the  Rhine,  had  joined  all  their  small  sized  armies  to  the 
veterans  of  the  P^mpire.  Spain,  on  whom  in  earlier  wars 
he  had  relied  as  a  friend,  now  required  a  French  army  to 
keep  it  from  being  a  successful  foe  ;  but  with  his  German 
allies,  and  with  Russia  holding  back,  he  believed  he  could 
soon  finish  Austria. 

He  did,  but  it  was  by  no  means  an  easy  task.  He  was 
fighting  the  people  now,  where,  before,  he  had  fought  sim- 
ply their  kings  and  soldiers.  "  The  liberties  of  Europe," 
the  patriotic  Archduke  Charles,  who  led  the  armies  of 
Austria,  declared  to  his  compatriots,  "have  taken  refuge 
under  your  banner.  Your  victories  will  break  their  bonds, 
and  your  German  brothers,  still  in  the  enemy's  ranks,  await 
their  redemption." 

With  the  rapidity  of  action  that  made  him  so  wonderful 
a  soldier  and  so  great  a  general,  Napoleon  turned  upon 
Austria  with  an  army  of  two  hundred  thousand  men,  de- 
feated her  soldiers  in  a  half-dozen  battles,  again  occupied 
her  captured  capital,  Vienna,  and,  pushing  after  her  flee- 
ing army,  fell  upon  the  Archduke  Charles,  who  stood  pluck- 
ily  at  bay  at  Aspern  and  Esseling. 


56        THE   STORY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

There  the  conqueror  at  first  experienced  defeat ;  for  in 
the  archduke,  he,  for  the  first  time,  met  a  foeman  really 
"worthy  of  his  steel;"  but,  with  re-enforced  ranks,  he  again 
marched  to  the  attack;  and  in  the  terrible  battle  of  Wagram, 
on  the  fifth  of  July,  1809,  he  totally  defeated  the  army  of 
Austria,  and  drove  that  unhappy  nation  once  again  into  a 
humiliating  and  destructive  truce. 

The  defeat  of  Austria  crushed  out  all  opposition  to 
Napoleon,  save  where,  in  Spain  and  Portugal,  the  British 
army  under  Wellington  battled  stubbornly,  but  unsuccess- 
fully, against  the  French  army  of  occupation,  and  the 
enraged  people  defended  their  honors  and  firesides  against 
the  invaders.  There,  again,  a  woman  spurred  her  brothers 
to  action;  an4  the  courageous  defence  of  the  city  on  the 
Ebro  has  made  the  "  Maid  of  Saragossa  "  forever  famous  : 

"Her  lover  sinks  —  she  sheds  no  ill-timed  tear; 

Her  chief  is  slain  —  she  fills  his  fatal  post; 

Her  fellows  flee  —  she  checks  their  base  career; 

The  foe  retires  —  she  leads  the  sallying  host: 

Who  can  appease  like  her  a  lover's  ghost  ? 

Who  can  avenge  so  well  a  leader's  fall  ? 

What  maid  retrieve,  when  man's  flushed  hope  is  lost.-" 

Who  hang  so  fiercely  on  the  flying  Gaul, 
Foiled  by  a  woman's  hand,  before  a  battered  wall  ? " 

So,  too,  among  the  stern  heights  of  the  Tyrol,  Andreas 
Hofer,  "innkeeper  of  the  Sandhof,"  the  only  patriot  who 
dared  to  answer  the  stirring  appeal  of  the  Archduke  Charles 
by  a  revolt  against  the  Bavarian  allies  of  France,  maintained 
a  desperate  resistance,  even  after  Austria's  overthrow,  and, 
betrayed  by  a  comrade,  met  Napoleon's  vengeance  bravely, 
—  a  hero  to  the  last. 

Had  Germany,  at  that  time,  shown  the  courage  of  Spain, 


THE   GRIP   OF   "THE    MAN   ON    HORSEBACK."         57 

or  the  determination  of  the  peasants  of  the  Tyrol,  Wagram 
might  have  been  a  dearly  bought  victory.  But  the  humilia- 
tion of  the  kingdom  of  the  great  Frederick  seemed  complete, 
and  even  the  outburst  of  one  small  band  of  patriotic  Ger- 
mans, under  the  leadership  of  brave  Major  Schill,  aroused 
but  little  enthusiasm,  and  brought  death  and  disgrace  to 
the  heroic  Schill  and  his  bold  eight  hundred. 

So  18 10  saw  the  world  practically  at  the  feet  of  Na- 
poleon. The  fifth  coalition  against  him  had  ended  in 
shameful  defeat.  He  was  literally  king  of  kings,  and 
"monarch  of  all  he  surveyed."  His  "  Continental  System" 
seemed  perfected.  Russia  was  his  ally  ;  Austria  and  Prus- 
sia were  his  conquered  foes  ;  the  princes  of  the  Rhine  were 
his  confederates ;  the  Pope  of  Rome  was  his  prisoner ; 
Italy  and  Spain,  Holland  and  Belgium,  were  "annexed  "  to 
the  Empire,  while  Switzerland,  Denmark,  Norway,  and 
Sweden  were  his  vassal  states.  In  all  Europe  only  one 
nation  dared  still  openly  to  resist  and  defy  him  —  England; 
and  all  Europe  was  against  her. 

The  imperial  hand  was  both  grasping  and  far-reaching. 
Asia  and  America  alike  paid  tribute  to  him,  in  yielding  to 
him  new  possessions  by  conquest  or  treaty  ;  his  dream  of 
an  oriental  empire  was  by  no  means  given  up. 

"We  will  make  an  end  of  Europe,"  he  declared,  "and 
then,  as  robbers  fling  themselves  on  others  less  bold,  we 
will  fling  ourselves  on  India." 

By  the  right  of  conquest  over  Spain  and  Portugal,  he 
assumed  possession  of  their  colonies  in  North  and  South 
America  ;  he  even  contemplated  making,  out  of  the  territory 
of  the  United  States,  a  kingdom  for  some  one  of  the  Bour- 
bon princes  whom  the  P'rench  Revolution  had  overthrown. 


58        THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

"  Three  years  more  and  I  am  lord  of  the  universe,"  he 
said,  full  of  assurance,  as,  puffed  with  the  pride  of  power, 
he  laid  down  the  law  for  the  world,  made  and  unmade 
kings  at  his  pleasure,  divorced  the  wife  whom  he  loved, 
contemptuously  threw  aside  Russia's  offer  of  the  young 
sister  of  the  Czar,  whom  he  might  have  made  his  new  wife, 
and,  for  state  reasons  only,  married  the  daughter  of  that 
emperor  of  Austria  who  had  been  the  centre  and  pivot  of  all 
the  continual  coalitions  against  him.  In  all  history  there 
is  no  parallel  to  the  character  of  Napoleon,  Emperor  of 
the  French. 

Europe,  war-tossed  and  war- weary,  was  on  the  defensive. 
We  look  at  the  story  of  those  days  of  battle  and  blood,  and 
feel  a  certain  contempt  for  all  these  foemen  of  Napoleon, 
who,  hating  him  as  they  did,  yet  scarcely  dared  to  strike  a 
blow  in  protest.  Austria,  for  whom  Hofer  roused  the  Ty- 
rol to  rebellion,  made  no  struggle  to  save  that  mountain 
patriot,  whom,  indeed,  his  own  countrymen  betrayed  ;  the 
following  of  Schill  and  the  German  revolutionists  was  small 
and  uncertain  ;  even  in  Spain,  where  England  was  attempt- 
ting  an  offensive  campaign,  the  Spanish  people  grew  indo- 
lent and  indifferent  toward  those  who  came  to  succor  them, 
and  Wellington  could  only  hold  a  defensive  position  or 
withdraw  before  the  French  power  ;  and  when,  in  July, 
1 809,  English  soldiers  attempted  an  assault  on  Napoleon's 
stolen  strongholds  in  another  part  of  Europe,  they  retreated 
discomfited  and  beaten  from  the  marshes  of  Walcheren, 
and  failed  in  their  effort  to  deliver  Holland. 

For  this  apathy  and  disinclination  to  "tackle  "  the  victo- 
rious Emperor  of  France  the  people  of  Europe  are  not  to 
be  altogether  blamed.     They  were  learning  but  slowly  that 


THE   GRIP   OF    "THE   MAN    ON    HORSEBACK."         59 

they  were,  iiKlecd,  the  people.  Long  centuries  of  kingly 
rule  and  the  tyranny  of  the  minority  had  made  them  slow 
to  rush  into  war  in  behalf  of  that  arrogant  minority. 

And,  so  far  as  the  people  were  concerned,  they  were 
really,  except  for  the  waste  and  slaughter  of  war,  benefited 
by  the  successes  of  this  imperial  robber  of  France,  even  if 
their  kings  and  nobles  were  not. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  had  sprung  from  the  people.  He 
knew  the  woes  and  worries,  the  burdens  and  tyrannies,  that 
the  favored  few,  called  the  ''nobility,"  laid  upon  the  toiling 
masses  of  Europe.  "  The  man  with  the  hoe,"  who  through 
ages  of  serfdom  had  been  scarcely  better  than  the  beast, 
was  helped  rather  than  hindered  by  "the  man  on  horse- 
back," who  rode  roughshod  over  kings  and  princes,  thrones 
and  emperors,  to  victory  and  conquest.  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte was  the  great  readjuster  of  Europe. 

In  France,  though  the  victorious  nation  was  sorely  bled 
for  men  to  fill  the  armies  of  the  Emperor,  there  was  more 
safety  and  repose  than  the  land  had  ever  known.  The 
good  results  of  the  terrible  Revolution  remained  ;  the  law- 
lessness and  tyranny  had  given  place  to  order ;  family, 
property,  and  religion  were  protected ;  while,  over  all,  still 
soared  the  glory  of  France,  which  as  yet,  under  the  Em- 
peror, had  never  known  defeat. 

In  Germany,  thinking  men  recognized  that  Napoleon's 
success  meant  the  overthrow  of  the  old  aristocratic  meth- 
ods, and,  by  the  terrible  shaking  it  gave  to  those  ancient 
thrones  and  dynasties,  really  meant  the  advance  of  that 
liberalism  which  develops  the  real  power  of  the  people. 
The  laws  forced  by  Napoleon  upon  the  people  he  conquered 
were  wiser  and  more  just  than  any  they  yet  had  known; 


6o         THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

and  the  basis  of  the  Code  Napoleon,  which  gave  a  new 
civil  law  to  France  and  its  dependencies,  to-day  survives  in 
the  laws  of  those  very  nations  which,  later,  combined  for 
his  overthrow. 

England,  in  her  stern  determination  to  fight  this  man 
who  sought  first  to  unite  the  continent  against  her,  and 
then  force  her  to  yield  to  him  or  be  broken  in  pieces,  girded 
herself  for  the  struggle  as  never  before,  intent  on  preserv- 
ing her  nationality,  constitutional  liberty,  and  commercial 
supremacy. 

For  these  very  things,  too,  was  Napoleon  fighting,  al- 
though he  did  not  know  it  himself.  To-day,  as  we  look 
back  at  that  troublesome  time  —  the  first  ten  years  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century  —  we  know  that,  robber,  destroyer, 
conqueror,  tyrant,  and  despot  though  he  was,  Napoleon, 
Emperor  of  the  French,  was  the  dominating  force  of  that 
bitter  time  ;  he  was  the  purgative  dose  that  God  gave  to 
Europe  and  the  world  ;  and  his  fight,  even  in  spite  of  him- 
self, was  for  that  "  nationality,  individual  liberty,  and  popu- 
lar sovereignty  "  which,  although  he  was  to  fall  as  their 
greatest  sacrifice  and  victim,  became  the  impelling  forces 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

Thus,  again,  do  we  see  how,  as  the  English  poet  says,  — 

"  God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way, 
His  wonders  to  perform." 

and  how,  as  we  may  again  and  again  discern  in  the  story 
of  the  world,  even  when  we  cannot  explain  the  reason  for 
the  existence  of  wrong  and  evil.  Divine  Providence  is  ever, 
in  the  interest  of  eternal  progress,  making  use  of  the  ways 
and  even  of  the  wiles  of  men  — 

"  From  seeming  evil  still  educing  good." 


THE   GRIP   OF   "THE   MAN    ON    HORSEBACK."         6 1 

Already,  before  1810  came  into  the  century,  this  prog- 
ress was  almost  apparent  from  the  "Mount  of  Vision." 
It  was  in  1807  that   Robert   Fulton  on  the   Hudson  River 
demonstrated,  by  sailing  his  steamboat  from  New  York  to 
Albany,   the  practical  value  of  that   marvellous  power  of 
steam  in  navigation  which  Napoleon,  to  whom  Fulton  had 
presented  his  idea,  contemptuously   "turned  down"  as  a 
"  toy."     In  Great  Britain,  Telford  and  Macadam  were  mak- 
ing the  first  of  those   "  good  roads  "   which  are  to-day  the 
glory  of  England  ;   in  America,  the  simple  but  wonderful 
cotton-gin,   invented   in    the    closing    years    of    the    eigh- 
teenth century  by  Eli  Whitney,  a  New   England  school- 
teacher in  Georgia,  had  already,  made  the  cotton  crop  of 
America  one  of  the  great   factors  in  industrial  progress, 
and  had  so  increased  the  productive  power  of  the  United 
States  as  to  lead  Macaulay,  the  English  historian,  to  de- 
clare that   "what   Peter  the  Great   did   to   make   Russia 
dominant,   Eli  Whitney,    inventor  of    the    cotton-gin,  has 
more  than   equalled  in  its  relation  to  the  power  and  prog- 
ress of  the  United  States." 

By  the  year  18 10,  indeed,  the  whole  world  had  shown  a 
substantial  advance  in  producing  things  and  in  helping 
man,  in  spite  of  (perhaps  because  of)  the  terrible  grip  of 
the  one  man  of  his  day,  Napoleon.  Savings  banks  and 
Bible  societies,  school  societies  and  fine  arts  institutions, 
charitable  endowments  and  hospitals,  had  already  been 
established ;  improvements  in  steam  possibilities  and  in 
labor-saving  machinery,  in  navigation,  printing,  weaving, 
stereotyping,  and  lighting  had  been  made  practical  and 
helpful  ;  the  slave-trade  was  abolished  in  England  ;  and, 
though  cotton  was  making  negro  slavery  a  profitable  neces- 


62        THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

sity  in  America,  the  importation  of  slaves  was  prohibited 
by  Congress  in  1808.  And  it  is  to  the  honor  of  Napoleon 
that  he,  alone  of  all  monarchs  and  rulers,  broke  into  that 
terrible  and  unjust  persecution  of  the  Jews  which  has  been 
a  blot  upon  Christian  civilization  from  Constantine  to 
Dreyfus. 

Intellectual  thought  was  growing,  as  opposition  to 
tyranny  awakened  it.  In  every  country  writers  and 
thinkers,  poets  and  philosophers,  story-tellers  and  scientists, 
were  laying  the  foundations  for  those  new  methods  of 
imparting  useful  and  inspiring  thoughts  which  were  to  lift 
the  world  out  of  the  slow  and  sleepy  methods  of  a  limited 
literature  and  a  hampered  intelligence  into  the  broader 
fields  of  effort  and  the  higher  planes  of  achievement.  The 
first  decade  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  closed  with  the 
light  growing  brighter  and  the  prosperity  of  the  people 
slowly  but  surely  coming  on. 

And  yet,  in  18 10,  the  whole  world  seemed  at  the  mercy 
of  the  world-conqueror.  How  would  civilization  free  itself 
from  the  burden  of  Napoleon  and  his  million  fighting 
men  ? 


'  Our  greittest  yet  with  least  pretence , 
Great  in  council  and  great  in  war. 
Foremost  captain  of  his  time. 
Rich  in  sariinf;  common  sense. 
And,  as  the  greatest  only  are, 
1 71  his  simplicity  sublime." 

Alfred  Tennyson. 


THE   AGE    OF   WELLINGTON. 

Militarism. 

(18/0-1820.) 


DUKE   OF  IVELLINGTON 

{A  rth t4r  It-  'ellesley) , 
CONQUEROR   OF  NAPOLEON, 
Born  Dublin,  Ireland,  April  ^o,  lybq. 
Died  IValmer  Castle,  England,  Sept.  14,  rSjs. 


CHAPTER    IV. 
HOW  napoleon's  star  set  at  last. 

(From  1810  to  /8/j.) 

THAT  question  was  one  that  was  forcing  itself  upon  the 
attention  of  thinking  men  and  the  desperate  needs  of 
conquered,  vassal,  allied,  or  hostile  nations.  Who  would 
rid  the  world  of  Napoleon,  Emperor  of  the  French  .-' 

There  is  a  certain  sympathy  with  all  men  who  stand  at 
bay.  The  champion  of  a  great  cause.  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
had  placed  himself  above  the  cause  he  championed ;  the 
vdctim  as  well  as  the  slave  of  his  own  ambitions,  he  now 
stood  the  conqueror  of  the  world  ;  and  yet,  in  all  the  world, 
there  was  no  man  more  alone  than  he  —  "in  the  midst  of 
his  glory  —  but  alone  ! "  one  contemporary  declared. 

And  now,  as  he  braces  himself  for  the  final  world- 
struggle,  one  cannot  but  admire  the  self-confidence,  the 
supreme  audacity,  of  the  man.  He  had  overthrown  feudal- 
ism. The  old  aristocratic  order,  under  which,  for  centu- 
ries, the  world  had  groaned  and  labored,  lay  dead  beneath 
his  all-conquering  heel  when  the  Nineteenth  Century  was 
young,  although  that  young  Nineteenth  Centur}'  knew  it 
not.  Washington's  Americans  had  dealt  it  the  first  stag- 
gering blow  ;  the  unbalanced  and  furious  revolutionists  of 
France  had  bloodily  grappled  with  and  throttled  it ;  and 
Napoleon,  pupil  of  America  and  §on  of  the  Revolution,  had 
finally  overthrown  it,  and  upon  its  ruins  was  striving  to  rear 
a  new  order  and  an  imperial  dynasty. 

6s 


66        THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY." 

But  this  was  not  to  be.  God,  in  his  wisdom,  had  used 
Napoleon  as  a  mighty  means  for  progress ;  but  now  other 
means  were  necessary  ;  the  people  them^selves,  and  not  one 
man,  must  be  the  power  for  the  world's  advance.  Napo- 
leon's "star,"  in  which  he  believed  so  implicitly,  must 
set. 

When  the  year  1810  came  in  none  but  a  prophet  could 
have  told  how  near  that  star  was  to  its  decline.  Napoleon, 
Emperor  of  the  French,  seemed  supreme.  The  European 
sea-coast,  from  Stockholm  around  to  Trieste,  was  occupied 
or  controlled  by  him ;  and,  of  all  the  nations,  only  England 
stood  his  open  foe.  His  simplest  word  seated  and  unseated 
kings ;  a  turn  of  his  hand  forced  England  and  America 
into  war.  He  loaded  his  favorites  with  gifts  and  titles ;  he 
made  Paris  the  centre  of  imperial  display,  bought  the  sup- 
port of  his  opponents,  and  muzzled,  by  subsidies  or  censor- 
ship, the  liberty  of  the  press.  When  his  son  was  born  — 
the  heir  upon  whom  all  his  highest  ambitions  turned  —  the 
proud  father  forced  subjects  and  vassals  into  so  mighty  a 
festival  of  rejoicing,  that,  as  one  student  of  that  time  de- 
clares, "No  boy  ever  came  on  the  earthly  stage  amid  such 
splendors,  or  seemed  destined  to  honors  such  as  appeared 
to  await  this  one." 

Off  in  one  corner  of  his  vast  domains  trouble  was  con- 
tinuous. He  had  sought  to  force  Spain  into  line ;  but  the 
"Spanish  ulcer"  as  it  has  been  called  was,  by  the  aid  of 
England,  slowly  eating  its  way  into  a  vital  point.  When 
the  final  struggle  came,  Spain  was  the  enemy  in  the  rear 
that  helped  on  disaster. 

When  Napoleon's  brother  Joseph,  whom  the  emperor  had 
made  king  of  Spain,  objected  to  the  high-handed  methods 


now    NAPOLEON'S    STAR   SET   AT    LAST.  67 

by  which  Napoleon  sought  to  force  the  Spaniards  to  sub- 
mission and  urged  gentler  measures,  the  emperor  con- 
temptuously pushed  him  aside,  and  announced  that  Spain 
was  hereafter  to  be  a  part  of  France. 

Even  England's  ministers  weakened  an  instant  before 
this  imperious  will.  They  would  have  withdrawn  the 
British  troops  from  the  Peninsula ;  but  Wellington  was 
not  the  man  to  desert  an  ally  or  take  a  backward  step. 

"The  honor  and  interest  of  England,"  he  said,  "require 
that  we  should  hold  our  ground  here  ;  and,  please  God,  I 
will  maintain  it  as  long  as  I  can." 

He  did  so,  in  spite  of  defeat  and  disaster.  The  people 
of  Spain  and  Portugal  re-aroused  to  madness  at  Napoleon's 
subversion  of  their  liberties,  threw  aside  their  sluggishness, 
and  rallied  again  to  Wellington's  side.  Then  making  a 
stand  against  the  French  invaders  behind  the  fortifications 
of  Torres  Vedras,  they  flung  them  back,  terribly  reduced, 
to  Ciudad  Rodrigo ;  and  the  bloody  battle  of  Albuera  in 
May,  181 1,  and  the  brilliant  victory  at  Salamanca  in  July, 
18 1 2,  cleared  the  French  from  Portugal  and  southern 
Spain,  and  annihilated  the  military  power  of  France  in  the 
well-defended  Peninsula. 

The  successful  stand  of  Wellington  at  the  lines  of  Torres 
Vedras  awoke  Europe  to  the  knowledge  that  the  French 
power  was  not  irresistible  and  that  a  union  in  resistance 
to  Napoleon's  tyranny  might  deliver  P^urope  from  his  grip. 

More  than  this,  the  people  were  beginning  to  assert 
themselves  rather  than  relying  upon  their  useless  kings. 
The  spirit  of  German  liberty,  founded  on  a  passionate  love 
for  the  P'atherland  and  a  slowly  awakening  knowledge  of 
the  real  German  power,  was  asserting  itself  in  spite  of  the 


68        THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

timid  Prussian  king  and  the  subservient  and  confederated 
princes  of  the  Rhine. 

This  assertion  came  slowly,  however ;  it  was  only  se- 
cretly growing  when,  in  1811,  Napoleon's  gigantic  ally, 
Russia,  disputed  the  Corsican  conqueror's  claim  to  rule  the 
continent  of  Europe  ;  became  jealous  of  his  efforts  to  bring 
the  other  nations  to  serve  his  purpose ;  objected  to  his 
hurtful  "  continental  system,"  and  was  angered  at  his  com- 
mercial methods  which  had  almost  ruined  business  in 
Russia. 

The  Czar,  enraged  with  Napoleon  for  preferring  an 
Austrian  to  a  Russian  princess  in  his  choice  of  a  wife,  and 
fearful  lest,  in  recarving  Europe,  Napoleon  might  slice 
away  from  Russia's  platter  too  much  of  conquered  and  un- 
happy Poland,  set  about  preparing  an  army  to  menace,  or 
if  need  be  fight,  his  victorious  rival  of  France. 

So  matters  stood,  when,  in  181 1,  Napoleon,  determining 
on  new  conquests,  declared  of  himself,  "  I  am  driven  on- 
ward to  a  goal  which  I  know  not."  He  summoned  to  his 
standard  an  army  of  half  a  million  men,  and  having  pre- 
sided in  Dresden  over  a  glittering  "  Congress  of  kings,"  — 
vassal  or  allied  princes,  —  set  out  in  June,  18 12,  on  the 
effort  of  his  life,  —  the  invasion  and  conquest  of  Russia. 

To  keep  England  out  of  the  way,  he  had  stirred  up 
trouble  between  her  and  the  United  States,  which  resulted 
in  the  disastrous  land  campaigns  and  brilliant  sea  struggles 
known  in  our  history  as  the  War  of  18 12. 

There  were,  of  course,  other  surface  reasons  for  this 
second  embroiling  of  the  "  State  of  Great  Britain  "  and  the 
States  that,  forty  years  before,  had  been  her  successfully 
rebellious  colonists.     The  old  animosities  had  not  died  out. 


HOW   NAPOLEON'S   STAR   SET   AT   LAST.  69 

Men  like  Andrew  Jackson  of  Tennessee,  who  bore  upon 
their  bodies  the  scars  of  British  tyranny  and  in  their  hearts 
the  smouldering  desire  for  revenge,  welcomed  the  oppor- 
tunity they  sought ;   shipmasters  who  had   suffered  from 
England's  sea-arrogance,  and  merchants  who  had  lost  by 
her  methods,  longed  to  see  America  assert  her  rights  on 
sea  and  land  ;  pioneers  and  borderers  who  knew  how  British 
agents  stirred  up  the  restless  red  Indians,  and  how  British 
gold  had  supplied  arms  and  ammunition  for  the  bold  chief 
Tecumseh's  conspiracy  of  confederated  tribes,  formed  for 
the  destruction  of  the  United  States,  burned  with  the  de- 
sire to  meet  and  forever  overthrow  the  obstacle  to  the  re- 
public's western  expansion.    But,  behind  all  of  these  reasons 
for  American  indignation  and  pugnacity,  may  now  be  traced 
the  restless  finger  of  Napoleon,  shrewdly  stirring  up  trouble 
between  these  English-speaking  rivals,  issuing  imperial  "de- 
crees "  that  brought  out  obstinate   and  angry  "  Orders  in 
Council"  and  "Embargoes"  and  "  Non-intercourse  Acts  " 
and  even  conniving  with  England  for  an  uncertain  peace  at 
the  price  of  forcing  from  the  United  States  a  kingdom  for 
the  prostrate  house  of  Bourbon. 

Abroad,  France  could  not  hope  to  retain  her  threatened 
colonies  while  hostile  England  ruled  the  seas.  Her  naval 
warfare  had  been  continuously  disastrous.  She  had  lost  Cay- 
enne and  Martinique,  San  Domingo  and  Guadaloupe,  in  the 
American  Indies ;  in  Africa  and  the  Asiatic  Indies,  Sene- 
gal and  Mauritius,  the  Isle  de  Bourbon  and  Java,  with 
Batavia,  had  been  wrested  from  her.  England's  sea-power 
must  be  occupied,  and  England's  war-might  diverted  from 
European  disturbances,  if  Napoleon  was  to  have  a  free  hand 
for  his  conquest  of  Russia,  and  in  his  estabUshment  as  em- 


70        THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

peror  of  the  continent.  In  1 8 1 2  the  man  who  dominated 
the  world  had  once  more  set  all  nations  "by  the  ears." 

In  his  assault  on  Russia,  Napoleon  had  the  enforced  and 
unwilling  support  of  half  the  states  of  Europe.  To  the 
make-up  of  his  "Grand  Army,"  Frenchmen,  Italians,  Swiss, 
Dutchmen,  and  Poles,  with  the  German  of  the  Rhine  lands, 
came,  by  order  of  their  rulers,  in  battalions  and  brigades. 
Austria,  with  thirty  thousand  men,  formed  the  right  wing 
of  his  army ;  Prussia,  with  twenty  thousand  men,  occupied 
the  left  wing.  Of  all  the  European  nations  only  Denmark 
could  remain  neutral.  Sweden,  whose  prince  was  one  of 
Napoleon's  own  generals,  broke  from  the  emperor  and 
sided  with  Russia ;  while  England,  fighting  the  French  in 
Spain,  made  a  treaty  with  France's  open  foes,  Sweden  and 
Russia. 

So  the  summer  of  181 2  opened  with  the  "Christian" 
nations  of  the  world  in  arms  against  each  other ;  and  Napo- 
leon, Emperor  of  the  French  and  the  dominating  influence 
of  the  world,  marched  across  the  river  Niemen  to  the  in- 
vasion of  Russia  with  an  army  of  half  a  million  men.  Be- 
hind him  were  great  reserves  of  supplies  in  storehouses 
and  arsenals ;  his  communications  were  kept  open  so  that 
fleet  couriers  could  ride  between  Paris  and  Moscow  with 
the  latest  news ;  and  before  his  victorious  advance  the 
Russians,  overwhelmed  by  defeat  at  Borodino,  fell  back  in 
flight,  while  before  the  old-time  capital  of  Russia  the  con- 
queror cried  to  his  soldiers  in  triumph  :  "  They  are  ours  at 
last !     March  on  ;  let  us  open  the  gates  of  Moscow  !  " 

Borodino  was  fought  on  the  third  of  September,  181 2; 
the  gates  of  Moscow  were  opened  on  the  seventh  ;  and  as 
Murat  and  his  cavalry  clattered  down  the  deserted  streets 


now    NAPOLEON'S    STAR   SET   AT    LAST.  71 

of  the  sacred  city  of  Russia,  —  "Mother  Moscow,"  as  the 
adoring  Russians  call  it, — Napoleon  rode  in  triumph  to 
the  Kremlin,  and  in  that  wonderful  old  palace,  half  citadel 
and  half  sanctuary,  declared  himself  the  conqueror  of 
Russia. 

Napoleon  had  brought  with  him  to  Russia  the  crown, 
sceptre,  and  robe  with  which,  in  the  Czar's  conquered  capi- 
tal, he  proposed  to  have  himself  solemnly  invested  as  he 
was  proclaimed  "  Emperor  of  the  West." 

But  that  imposing  regalia  was  never  unpacked  in  Russia 
from  the  emperor's  camp-chest.  The  change  had  come  in 
the  story  of  Napoleon. 

"God  have  mercy  upon  us!"  was  the  cry  with  which 
the  Russian  soldiers  flung  themselves  to  death  at  the  battle 
of  Borodino.  "  Die  for  your  faith  and  the  Czar  !  "  was 
the  cry  of  the  Russian  peasants,  as,  setting  their  "holy 
city  "  in  fiames  rather  than  leave  it  as  a  sport  to  the  in- 
vader, they  turned  upon  the  conquering  army,  and  began 
that  terrible  campaign  of  merciless  devastation  that  laid 
western  Russia  in  waste,  and  forced  the  French  invaders 
into  those  days  of  historic  horror  known  as  "the  retreat 
from  Moscow." 

For  into  retreat  the  proudly  proclaimed  invasion  of 
Russia  speedily  turned.  The  proposals  for  peace  which 
Napoleon  expected  from  the  defeated  Czar  did  not  come, 
though  he  wasted  four  weeks  in  useless  waiting.  Instead, 
Russia,  re-enforced  by  England,  made  peace  with  Turkey, 
drew  her  strengthening  lines  of  obedient  soldiers  and  home- 
defending  peasants  closely  around  Moscow,  and  fell  upon 
the  French  emperor,  who,  in  his  enforced  idleness  in  the 
Kremlin,  had  sunk  energy  in  indolence,  the  soldier  in  the 


72        THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

emperor,  and  lost  the  old  fire  that  had  made  him,  through 
all  the  years  before,  the  invincible  warrior. 

Aroused  to  defence  by  Russia,  for  an  instant  the  soldier 
in  Napoleon  blazed  forth  ;  but  again  came  indisposition  and 
indifference.  Already  the  Napoleon  of  the  past  was  gone ; 
the  world  conqueror,  unable  to  conquer  himself,  the  victim 
even  then  of  disease,  indolence,  and  a  desire  for  the  com- 
forts of  power,  turned  back  from  a  nation  at  bay,  and  began 
the  long  retreat  to  France,  dejected  and  dispirited,  unable 
to  endure  the  ignominy  of  a  first  defeat. 

The  story  of  that  historic  retreat  from  Moscow  is  well 
known.  Harassed  in  an  enemy's  country ;  overtaken  by 
driving  snowstorms  and  bitter  cold ;  with  allies  falling 
away  and  vassals  straggling  and  deserting ;  exhausted, 
famishing,  frozen,  lost,  and  half-crazed  by  the  horrors  of 
the  retreat,  the  great  invading  force  of  Napoleon  the  em- 
peror dwindled  day  by  day,  until,  after  the  terrible  tragedy 
at  the  crossing  of  the  Beresina,  scarce  one  hundred  thousand 
men  straggled  over  the  River  Niemen,  where,  six  months 
before,  nearly  six  hundred  thousand  men  had  proudly 
marched  to  conquest. 

But  so  dominant  was  Napoleon's  influence  in  France,  so 
great  the  belief  in  his  genius  and  his  glory,  that,  instead  of 
protesting  against  the  demands  of  this  man  who  had  just 
wasted  the  lives  of  three  hundred  thousand  men,  France 
responded  at  once  to  his  summons  for  a  new  army  that 
should  annihilate  Russia,  and,  for  the  twentieth  time,  help 
Europe  "tear  itself  to  pieces."  A  new  army  of  three  hun- 
dred thousand  men  was  ready  for  action  in  May,  1813  ;  and 
this,  by  the  addition  of  the  armies  of  his  allies,  he  hoped  to 
increase  to  more  than  half  a  million. 


now    NAPOLEON'S    STAR   SET   AT   LAST.  73 

But  his  allies  had  no  desire  to  slaughter  themselves  for 
Napoleon's  ambitions;  the  Confederates  of  the  Rhine 
"confederated  "  slowly  and  sullenly  ;  Saxony  hesitated  and 
argued  ;  Austria  held  back,  and  secretly  prepared  to  desert ; 
while  Prussia,  aroused  by  the  stubbornness  of  Spain,  the 
self-devotion  of  Russia,  and  the  awakened  patriotism  of 
her  own  sons,  "braced  up"  their  king  until  he,  too,  re- 
sponded to  the  enthusiastic  demands  of  his  people,  and, 
breaking  away  from  his  French  alliance,  sounded  the 
bugle-call  to  arms,  and  bade  all  Germans  unite  for  liberty 
and  the  Fatherland. 

"  I  have  but  one  fatherland,  and  that  is  Germany,"  de- 
clared Stein,  the  patriotic  statesman,  who,  recalled  from 
exile,  aroused  Prussia  to  revolt,  and  Germany  to  unite. 

"What  is  the  German  P'atherland  ? "  sang  Arndt,  the 
peasant-poet  from  Rugen,  — 

"  Where'er  resounds  the  German  tongue, 
Where'er  its  hymns  to  God  are  sungl 

That  land  is  the  land, 
Brave  German,  that,  thy  fatherland  1 

That  is  the  German  fatherland  1 
Where  scorn  shall  foreign  triflers  brand, 
Where  all  are  foes  whose  deeds  offend, 
Where  every  noble  soul's  a  friend : 

Be  this  the  land, 
All  Germany   shall  be  the  land  1  " 

Angered  by  the  audacity  of  the  Prussian  revolt,  Napo- 
leon, aroused  from  his  indolence,  flung  himself  upon  Ger- 
many at  the  head  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand 
men.  But,  at  Liitzen,  and  Bautzen,  and  Wurschen,  fought  in 
May,  1 8 1 3,  though  successful  as  a  general,  he  was  no  longer 


74        THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

successful  as  a  conqueror.  The  Germans  would  not  yield; 
his  victories  were  not  decisive  ;  Prussia  was  not  swept  from 
his  path  ;  Russia  was  not  again  invaded  and  punished ; 
both  sides  awaited  the  decision  of  Austria ;  and  Germany, 
jubilant  with  hope,  and  fast  in  its  determination  to  be  free, 
sang  with  enthusiasm  the  famous  "  sword-song  "  of  Korner, 
who  died  for  German  unity  at  Lutzen  almost  before  the 
ink  had  dried  in  which  that  stirring  song  was  written  : 

"  Sword,  on  my  left  side  gleaming, 
What  means  thy  bright  eyes  beaming.^ 
It  makes  my  spirit  dance 
To  see  thy  friendly  glance. 
Hurrah  1 

Yes,  good  sword,  I  am  free, 
And  love  thee  heartily. 
And  clasp  thee  to  my  side, 
E'en  as  my  plighted  bride. 
Hurrah  1 

Now  let  the  loved  one  sing. 
Now  let  the  clear  blade  ring. 
Till  the  bright  sparks  shall  fly, 
Heralds  of  victory  1 
Hurrah  1  " 

Austria  decided.  She  cast  in  her  lot  against  the  hus- 
band of  her  princess.  All  Europe  combined  against  Napo- 
leon in  one  last  great  "coalition  ;"  and  at  Leipsic,  after  two 
months  of  varying  battle,  three  hundred  thousand  allies  — ■ 
the  soldiers  of  Prussia,  Austria,  Russia,  and  Sweden  —  met 
Napoleon's  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  men,  and 
defeated  them  in  the  great  conflict  known  as  "  the  Battle  of 
the  Nations."     Napoleon  retreated  across  the  Rhine  with 


HOW    NAPOLEON'S    STAR   SET   AT    LAST.  75 

the  shattered  remains  of  his  army,  scarce  seventy  thousand 
in  all ;  and  his  power  in  luiropc  was  forever  broken. 

The  allies  were  jubilant  ;  Napoleon  had  been  defeated  ; 
France  lay  open  before  them  ;  and  giving  the  defeated 
emperor  scant  time  to  retrieve  himself,  they  pushed  on  to 
his  destruction,  while  the  emancipated  Germans  filled  the 
air  with  their  lusty  singing  of  Arndt's  rousing  chorus  in 
honor  of  their  stout  old  li eld-marshal,  Blucher  :  — 

"  Then  sound,  blaring  trampets  1     Hussars,  charge  once  more  ! 
Ride,  field  marshal,  ride  like  the  wnd  in  the  roarl 
To  the  Rhine,  to  the  Rhine,  in  your  triumph  advance! 
Brave  sword  of  our  country,  right  on  into  France! 
And  here  are  the  Germans :  Jtichkeirassassa! 
The  Germans  are  joyful;  they're  shouting  hurrah!" 

"  Wc  are  not  at  war  with  France,  but  with  Napoleon  ! " 
declared  the  allies  ;  and  when  the  defeated  emperor  refused 
to  consider  their  proposals  for  peace  they  crossed  the  Rhine, 
and,  in  three  great  armies  of  invasion,  closed  upon  Napo- 
leon in  France. 

But  Napoleon  in  France  was  in  no  way  inclined  to  admit 
defeat  or  accept  peace.  He  granted  truces  ;  he  did  not 
propose  them,  he  arrogantly  declared.  So  he  gathered  a 
new  army,  mostly  raw  recruits,  and  neglecting  to  fortify 
Paris,  which  in  the  security  of  his  years  of  success  he  had 
never  deemed  necessary,  he  struck  boldly  at  the  invaders  of 
PVance,  and,  aiming  to  surprise  and  overthrow  each  divis- 
ion of  their  army  in  turn,  made  a  brilliant  campaign  in 
defence  of  his  imperilled  empire. 

The  coalition  was,  however,  too  strong  for  him.  Its 
members  had  sworn  to  each  other  to  fight  unceasingly 
against  Napoleon,  if  it  took  twenty  years  to  conquer  him. 


'j6        THE   STORY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

It  took  only  three  months  for  the  alHes  to  do  this.  In 
spite  of  a  desperate  resistance  the  conqueror  at  bay  was 
conqueror  but  for  a  brief  season  ;  slowly  but  surely,  in  spite 
of  Napoleon's  defence  of  unfortified  France,  the  invaders 
closed  about  Paris,  stormed  and  captured  its  weak  barriers 
while  Napoleon  was  desperately  marching  to  attack  them 
in  the  rear ;  and  before  he  could  come  up,  his  capital  had 
surrendered,  the  allied  armies  had  entered  Paris  as  a  cap- 
tured city,  and  Napoleon,  deserted  by  the  very  men  whom 
he  had  raised  to  riches  and  power,  was  forced  to  abdicate 
the  throne  upon  which  he  had  placed  himself.  On  the 
sixth  of  April,  1814,  with  France  divided  in  councils,  and 
at  the  mercy  of  the  enemy.  Napoleon  ceased  to  be  the 
Emperor  of  the  French,  and  contented  himself  with  accept- 
ing the  "generosity"  of  his  allied  enemies,  who  permitted 
him  to  retain  the  title  of  emperor,  and  to  rule,  as  his 
"dominion,"  the  little  island  of  Elba,  —  a  patch  of  rock 
and  vineyard  in  the  Mediterranean,  eighteen  miles  long,  by 
from  two  to  three  miles  wide. 

Thus  suddenly  did  "  Napoleon's  star  "  set  in  darkness. 
In  all  history  there  is  no  more  striking  example  of  meteoric 
success  —  and  failure. 

At  the  mercy  of  the  allies,  France,  having  expelled 
Napoleon,  accepted  a  Bourbon  king  —  the  brother  of  that 
Louis  whom  the  Revolution  had  slaughtered  —  and  an  en- 
forced peace  which  left  it  smaller  than  when  Napoleon  first 
appeared  to  save  her  from  the  Revolution.  The  five  great 
powers  of  Europe  met  in  Congress  at  Vienna,  and  reset 
the  continent  within  its  old  boundaries ;  but,  while  at- 
tempting to  restore  things  to  the  old  conditions,  the  Con- 
gress of  Vienna  discovered  that  the  world  had  progressed, 


HOW    NAPOLEON'S    STAR   SET   AT    LAST.  "J"] 

and  was  forced  to  acknowledge  and  permit  such  things 
as  the  rights  of  the  governed  and  the  necessity  of  consti- 
tutions. 

The  world  imagined  that  peace  and  prosperity  had  come 
at  last  ;  but,  suddenly,  Napoleon  broke  from  his  enforced 
idleness  at  Elba,  and  landing  in  France  with  fifteen  hun- 
dred men,  roused  the  army  to  revolt  from  the  dotard  Bour- 
bon to  the  hero  Napoleon,  and  with  the  cry  of  "  Long  live 
the  emperor !  "  drove  the  Bourbons  from  Paris,  where 
Napoleon  proclaimed  himself  once  more  Emperor  of  the 
French  with  but  one  object,  "to  increase  the  prosperity 
of  France  by  strengthening  public  liberty." 

It  was  a  dramatic  and  exciting  episode  in  the  world's 
story,  just  suited  to  such  a  nature  as  Napoleon's  and  to  so 
volatile  a  people  as  the  French.  But  it  was  as  short-lived  as 
it  was  impossible  of  success.  On  the  first  of  March,  1815, 
Napoleon  landed  in  France ;  on  the  thirteenth  he  pro- 
claimed himself  emperor.  In  just  one  hundred  days  he 
had  staked  all,  and  lost  on  his  last  throw  for  power. 

Waterloo  was  fought  on  the  eighteenth  of  June,  1 8 1 5  ; 
and,  on  the  twenty-second  of  June,  the  defeated  adventurer 
abdicated  his  briefly  occupied  throne,  "a  sacrifice  to  the 
enemies  of  France,"  and,  captured  by  England,  was  exiled 
to  the  far-off  island  of  St.  Helena  —  a  prisoner  for  life! 
The  star  of  Napoleon  had  set  indeed. 

Then  Byron,  the  English  poet,  wrote  in  true  English 
denunciatory  style  : 

"'Tis  done — but  yesterday  a  king! 

And  armed  with  kings  to  strive  — 
And  now  thou  art  a  nameless  thing, 
So  abject — yet  alive  1 


78         THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

Is  this  the  man  of  thousand  thrones, 

Who  strewed  our  earth  with  hostile  bones? 

And  can  he  thus  survive  ? 
Since  he,  miscalled  the  Morning  Star, 
Nor  man  nor  fiend  hath  fallen  so  far. 

Ill  minded  man!  why  scourge  thy  kind, 

Who  bowed  so  low  the  knee  ? 
By  gazing  on  thyself  grown  blind, 
Thou  taught'st  the  rest  to  see. 
With  might  unquestioned  —  power  to  save  — 
Thine  only  gift  hath  been  the  grave 
To  those  that  worshipped  thee; 
Nor,  till  thy  fall,  could  mortals  guess 
Ambition's  less  than  littleness." 

And  then,  looking  over  the  whole  world,  blood-soaked  and 
wreck-strewn  after  so  many  years  of  war,  —  the  fruit  of 
man's  ambition,  and  the  desperate  struggle  of  the  nations 
to  preserve  the  old  and  selfish  aristocracies,  —  Byron  closed 
his  fervid,  stinging  "Ode  to  Napoleon,"  with  this  stanza  of 
peculiar  interest  to  us,  as  coming  from  an  English  aristo- 
crat :  — 

"  Where  may  the  wearied  eye  repose, 
When  gazing  on  the  great ; 
Where  neither  guilty  glory  glows 
Nor  despicable  state  ? 
Yes  —  one — the  first  —  the  last — the  best  — 
The  Cincinnatus  of  the  West, 
Whom  envy  dared  not  hate, 
Bequeath'd  the  name  of  Washington, 

To  make  men  blush  there  was  but  one  I " 

Even  as  the  poet  wrote  this  appreciative  verse,  the  land 
of  Washington  was  in  sore  need  of  "the  first  —  the  last  — 
the  best  "  to  guide  it  through  the  troubled  waters  into 
which  Napoleon's  hand  had  helped  to  steer  it.     For  Wash- 


now    NATOLEON'S    STAR   SET   AT    LAST.  79 

ington  believed  in  "adjustment;"  he  begged  his  country- 
men to  keep  out  of  foreign  complications,  and  yet,  in  time 
of  peace,  to  prepare  for  war.  He  and  his  successor,  John 
Adams,  had  held  the  new  and  weak  republic  free  from  such 
entanglements.  But  Jefferson,  with  a  hatred  of  England, 
and  a  leaning  toward  republican  France,  had  scorned  com- 
promise and  adjustment;  he  never  yielded  anything  to 
English  demands  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  he  neglected  to 
strengthen  the  defences  of  the  country  so  as  to  be  able 
to  back  up  this  pugnacious  attitude.  Madison,  the  next 
president,  adopted  Jefferson's  methods,  but  had  neither 
his  spirit  nor  ability,  and  when  Napoleon,  bent  on  his  self- 
ish "continental  system,"  sought  to  cripple  England,  and 
embroil  her  with  America,  in  June,  18 12,  America  en- 
tered into  the  w^orld-struggle,  as  Washington  had  begged 
his  countrymen  not  to  do,  and  declared  war  against  Eng- 
land. 

The  war  of  1 8 1 2  is  not  one  of  which  Americans  may 
feel  proud.  It  w^as  an  a\'oidable  war ;  it  was  a  leader- 
less  war ;  it  was  an  ineffectual  war.  Arbitration  might 
have  prevented  it ;  but  Napoleon  had  no  wish  to  see  it 
prevented.  A  great  leader  like  Washington  might  have 
organized  victory ;  but  the  generals  of  the  army  were 
either  superannuated  Continentals  or  political  place-hunters. 
It  might  have  led  to  an  abatement  of  the  tyranny  of  the 
sea  which  England  exercised ;  but  the  very  things  for 
which  America  went  to  war  were  not  even  mentioned  in 
the  treaty  of  peace. 

America's  victories  on  the  sea,  however,  gave  the  first 
successful  blow  at  Great  Britain's  claim  to  "rule  the  seas." 
The  effect  of  these  victories  in  England  were,  as  Green 


8o        THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

says,  "out  of  all  proportion  to  their  importance;"  while 
Andrew  Jackson's  marvellous  victory  over  Wellington's 
veterans  at  New  Orleans,  unnecessary,  because  fought 
after  peace  had  been  declared,  gave  to  the  close  of  a 
stupidly  mismanaged  land  war  a  glory  which  has  never 
been  forgotten,  and  which  is,  indeed,  held  by  Americans 
as  largely  constituting  the  war  of  1812, 

This  war  of  1812,  however,  has  been  called  by  enthu- 
siasts the  Second  War  of  American  Independence.  And 
in  a  certain  sense  it  was.  It  freed  American  politics  from 
European  standards  ;  it  made  America  American  ;  it  drew 
her  sons  out  of  the  selfish  limits  of  their  own  homes,  and 
made  them  a  united  nation  ;  and  as  Dr.  Edward  Channing 
says,  *'  it  led  not  merely  to  American  independence  of 
other  nations,  but  to  a  breaking  away  from  the  hampering 
conditions  of  colonial  life." 

This  acquaintanceship  of  the  world  was,  indeed,  one  of 
the  chief  results  of  the  long  and  cruel  war-period  that 
closed  in  181  5.  If  Napoleon  Bonaparte  had  done  nothing 
else,  he  had  drawn  the  nations  out  of  their  old  rivalries  into 
a  gradual  knowledge  of  each  other,  first  for  protection  and 
then  for  mutual  advantage.  The  old  barriers  were  broken 
down  ;  men  began  to  know  their  neighbors  and  to  think 
for  themselves.  In  thus  promoting  the  world's  brotherhood 
Napoleon,  called  the  Great,  may  be  esteemed  a  great 
public  benefactor. 


CHAPTER    V. 

HOW    THE    DESIRE    FOR    INDEPENDENCE    GREW. 

{From  i8ij  to  1820.) 

WHEN  William  Makepeace  Thackeray,  an  English 
boy,  born  in  India,  was  on  his  way  "  home "  to 
England,  where  he  had  been  sent  to  school,  as  was  the 
custom  with  English  boys  born  abroad,  his  ship,  on  the 
way  across,  stopped  at  the  English  island  of  St.  Helena. 
There,  as  his  black  servant  took  him  on  a  long  walk  over 
the  rocks  and  hills  of  that  lonely  South  Atlantic  isle,  they 
saw  a  short,  stout  man  walking  in  a  garden.  The  black 
man  stopped,  and  pointed  out  to  the  small  English  boy, 
the  "  sight "  they  had  crossed  the  island  to  see. 

"  That  is  he,"  said  the  black  servant  to  the  British  child  ; 
"that  is  Bonaparte!  He  eats  three  sheep  every  day,  and 
all  the  little  children  he  can  lay  hands  on." 

The  small  boy  swallowed  the  story  whole,  and  looked 
with  horror  at  "the  Corsican  ogre,"  as  men  called  him. 
For  young  William  Makepeace  Thackery  and  his  black 
Calcutta  serv'ant  were  not  the  only  ones  who  held  that 
legendary  opinion  of  the  fallen  Emperor  of  the  French. 

But  in  18 1 5  the  age  of  Napoleon  closed.  The  man  who 
for  ten  years  and  more  had  been  the  dominant  force  — 
the  one  great  man  of  the  world  —  had  fallen  from  his  high 
estate. 

The  age  of  Napoleon  closed  ;  but  his  influence  remained 

81 


82        THE   STORY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

for  years  to  vex  the  minds  of  kings,  and  inspire  the  hopes 
of  seekers  after  progress.  Heavy  as  was  his  hand  upon 
the  nations,  limitless  as  was  his  ambition,  and  bloody  as 
was  his  pathway  to  power,  the  good  he  accomplished  could 
not  be  undone.  "Never  before,"  says  the  Englishman 
Mackenzie,  "had  any  man  inflicted  upon  his  fellows 
miseries  so  appalling  ;  never  before  did  one  man's  hand 
scatter  seeds  destined  to  produce  a  harvest  of  political 
changes  so  vast  and  so  beneficent." 

And  that  master  in  French  literature,  Victor  Hugo, 
threw  upon  the  screen  the  preponderating  shadow  of  this 
world-troubler,  who,  harmless  at  St.  Helena,  was  still  an 
ever-present  menace  through  the  half-dozen  years  of  life  in 
exile  that  Heaven  was  still  to  allot  to  him : 

"Angel  or  demon  1  thou  —  whether  of  light 
The  minister,  or  darkness  —  still  dost  sway 

This  age  of  ours;  thine  eagle's  soaring  flight 
Bears  us,  all  breathless,  after  it,  away. 

The  eye  that  from  thy  presence  fain  would  stray 

Shuns  thee  in  vain ;  thy  mighty  shadow  thrown 
Rests  on  all  pictures  of  the  living  day. 
And  on  the  threshold  of  our  time,  alone. 

Dazzling,   yet  sombre,  stands  thy  form,  Napoleon  I " 

So  the  man  who  had  set  all  the  world  astir  "on  the 
threshold  of  our  time,"  as  Victor  Hugo  says,  although  out 
of  harm's  way,  the  prisoner  of  remorseless  England,  still 
remained  "the  world's  bugaboo,"  to  frighten  children  like 
young  Thackeray,  and  keep  alive  in  Europe  that  spirit  of 
bayonet-rule,  or  what  we  call  militarism,  best  typified  by 
the  soldier  who  was  the  foremost  man  of  the  next  decade, 
—  Wellington,  the  conqueror  of  Napoleon,  the  victor  of 
Waterloo,  the  soldier-councillor  of  kings. 


HOW   THE   DESIRE   FOR   INDEPENDENCE   GREW.      83 

The  middle  name  of  that  small  boy  who  saw  "  the  Cor- 
sicaii  ogre"  at  St.  Helena,  William  Makepeace  Thackeray, 
best  expresses  the  desire  of  the  world  after  the  fall  of 
Napoleon.  The  world  was  indeed  united  to  make  peace 
and  keep  it.  But  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  at  which  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  was  England's  chief  negotiator,  and 
where  the  great  powers  of  Europe  met  to  carve  up  Napo- 
leon's short-lived  empire,  and  readjust  "the  balance"  of 
Europe,  while  working  for  peace,  sought  to  uphold  it  with 
bayonets,  and  hedge  it  with  kingly  prerogatives. 

Something  was  happening  in  the  world,  however,  des- 
tined to  dull  the  bristling  bayonets  and  limit  the  kingly 
prerogatives.  Invention,  which  is  said  to  be  the  handmaid 
of  peace,  though  inspired  by  the  energies  of  such  a  world- 
stirrer  and  warrior  as  Napoleon,  was  already  stimulating 
the  productive  forces  of  the  world,  even  as  the  awakening 
of  the  people  was  stimulating  its  intellectual  forces. 

When  Waterloo  was  fought,  steamboats,  dismissed  by 
Napoleon,  when  offered  for  his  consideration,  as  "mere 
toys,"  were  sailing  the  rivers  of  America  and  England  ; 
the  electric  telegraph,  also  contemptuously  put  aside  by 
Napoleon  when  suggested  to  him  by  Sommering  of  Mu- 
nich, as  a  "German  notion,"  was  gradually  working  its  way 
toward  practical  use ;  and  George  Stephenson,  the  English- 
man, had  just  invented  the  locomotive.  Steam  and  elec- 
tricity, the  greatest  civilizing  and  unifying  forces  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  by  means  of  which,  could  he  have  ap- 
preciated their  value.  Napoleon  might  perhaps  have  com- 
pleted his  dream  of  conquest,  and  cemented  his  power, 
were,  as  the  conqueror  fell,  preparing  for  their  great 
mission  of  revolutionizing  and  developing  the  world. 


84        THE   STORY  OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

The  power  of  mind,  also,  was  asserting  itself  ;  intellec- 
tual thought  was  becoming  more  widely  diffused  ;  poets, 
philosophers,  teachers,  scientists,  and  enthusiasts  were 
finding  a  more  extended  audience,  as  the  people  learned  to 
listen  and  appreciate  ;  and,  though  war  had  paralyzed  edu- 
cation, the  schoolmaster  followed  fast  upon  the  vanishing 
trumpet-call.  The  results  of  revolution  and  imperialism 
were  of  advantage,  even  though  desolation  and  death  had 
walked  beside  the  insurgent  and  the  conqueror. 

Scott's  "  Marmion  "  and  Moore's  "  Irish  Melodies  "  ap- 
peared at  the  very  height  of  Napoleonic  power  ;  Niebuhr's 
"  Roman  History,"  which  worked  almost  an  overturn  in  the 
way  of  telling  history,  was  published  when  Prussia  lay  at 
the  feet  of  her  conqueror;  and  Byron  "awoke  one  morning 
and  found  himself  famous  "  when,  in  1812,  the  first  cantos 
of  his  remarkable  "  Childe  Harold  "  were  pubHshed  —  and 
Napoleon  was  retreating  from  Moscow.  Schiller's  great 
work  in  German  literature  had  closed  with  his  grand  climax 
of  "William  Tell"  in  1804;  but  Goethe  survived  the  death 
of  the  old  order  of  things,  and  produced  his  masterpiece 
"Faust" — the  first  part,  at  least  —  in  1808  (the  year  when 
Napoleon  met  him  at  Erfurt),  published  "  Elective  Affin- 
ities" in  1809,  and  began  the  issue  of  his  autobiography — 
"Truth  and  Poetry  from  my  Own  Life"  —  in  181 1. 

The  interview  between  Goethe  and  Napoleon  at  Erfurt, 
in  the  midst  of  emperors,  kings,  and  princes  gathered  at 
the  behest  of  the  imperial  Corsican,  was  the  meeting  of 
the  two  greatest  Europeans  then  living ;  but  it  is  said  that 
Goethe  was  drawn  to  Erfurt  to  meet  Talma,  even  more 
than  to  see  Napoleon. 

Talma  was  the  greatest  actor  of  his  time;  though  Kemble 


HOW   THE   DESIRE   FOR   INDEPENDENCE   GREW.     8$ 

and  Kean  and  Mrs.  Siddons  were  still  the  chief  stars  of  the 
English  stage,  and  Schroder,  at  Hamburg,  was  striving  to 
place  Shakspcre  on  the  German  stage.  Neither  in  Eng- 
land nor  America,  however,  was  the  theatre  considered 
respectable  or  "proper"  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century,  and  even  great  actors  could  not  at  once 
change  this  opinion.  Religion,  which  is  or  has  been  too 
often  a  cloak  for  intolerance,  gave  the  serious  tone  to  teach- 
ing, criticism,  and  life  which  appeared  wherever  there  was 
a  protest  against  French  follies  and  European  insincerities ; 
but  this,  in  turn,  led  to  a  deeper  study  and  a  more  search- 
ing criticism,  which  gradually  began  to  broaden  and  liberal- 
ize the  religious  thought,  alike  of  Europe  and  of  America. 
Criticism,  which  occupied  itself  with  religious  teachings, 
extended  itself  also  to  educational  methods;  but  these 
moved  slowly,  and,  throughout  Europe,  in  those  first  years 
of  a  curbed  but  gradually  increasing  revolt  against  the 
Napoleonic  despotism,  the  student  was  the  first  to  protest, 
to  revolt,  and  to  rush  to  arms.  The  University  of  Jena 
was  a  "breeding-ground"  for  democratic  ideas;  the  stu- 
dents who  had  fought  at  Waterloo  formed  themselves  into 
a  great  secret  society  to  preserv^e  the  independence  and 
establish  the  unity  of  Germany ;  while,  in  the  castle  where 
Luther  defied  both  pope  and  emperor,  five  hundred  stu- 
dents agreed  to  spread  the  idea  of  liberty  through  all  the 
universities  of  the  Fatherland,  and  adopted  the  college 
banner  of  black,  red,  and  yellow,  which  speedily  became 
liberty's  colors  in  Germany.  It  was  Korner,  the  student 
of  Leipsic  and  Vienna,  who  woke  Germany  to  passionate 
enthusiasm  by  his  terrible  but  stirring  summons  to  re- 
sistance:— 


86        THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

"  My  people,  wake !     The  signal-fires  are  smoking ; 

Bright  breaks  the  light  of  Freedom  from  the  north; 
'Tis  time  thy  steel  in  foemen's  hearts  was  reeking. 
My  people,  wake  I     The  signal-fires  are  smoking; 

The  field  is  white ;    ye  reapers,  hasten  forth  I 
The  last,  the  highest  hope  lies  in  the  sword ; 

Home  to  thy  bleeding  breast  their  lances  strain; 
Make  way  for  freedom !     Let  thy  blood  be  poured, 

To  cleanse  thy  German  land  from  every  stain." 

But  it  was,  also,  the  schoolboys  of  Paris  and  the 
students  of  the  Polytechnic  who  made  the  last  and  most 
desperate  stand  against  the  allied  invaders  at  the  barricades 
of  Paris  in  1814  ;  and  it  was  the  students  of  the  University 
of  Moscow,  the  cradle  of  the  great  Russian  nationality, 
who,  stirred  to  action  by  the  songs  of  Zhukovski  (whose 
"  Poet  in  the  Russian  Camp  "  was,  we  are  told,  on  the  lips 
of  all  who  loved  the  fatherland),  lighted  the  fires  that  left 
the  "  holy  city  "  of  Russia  a  useless  pile  of  ruins  at  the 
feet  of  the  invader  ;  and  that  same  year,  in  the  famous 
Lyceum  of  the  Czar,  near  St.  Petersburg,  a  small  boy  was 
going  to  school  whose  songs,  springing  from  the  days  of 
Russia's  fight  for  leadership,  were  to  make  Alexander 
Pushkin  the  greatest  poet  of  the  Czar's  dominions.  It 
was  he  who  first  aroused  the  real  spirit  of  liberty  in  Russia, 
braving  exile  and  death,  again  and  again,  and  making  him- 
self so  surely  the  poet  of  the  people  that  what  he  says  of 
himself  —  as  the  poet  rather  than  Alexander  Pushkin  —  is 
not  nearly  as  conceited  as  it  sounds  in  the  lines  he  called 
"  a  Monument :  " — 

"  I've  raised  myself  no  statue  made  with  hands,  — 
The  people's  path  to  it    lO  weeds  will  hide. 
Rising  with  no  submissive  head  it  stands 
Above  the  pillar  of  Napoleon's  pride. 


HOW   THE   DESIRE    FOR   INDEPENDENCE   GREW.      8/ 

No  I    t  shall  never  die:    in  sacred  strains 

My  soul  survives  my  dust  and  flees  decay ; 
And  famous  shrill   I  be  while  there  remains 

A  single  poet  'neath  the  light  of  day. 
Through  all  great   Russia  will  go  forth  my  fame, 
And  every  tongue  in  it  will  name  my  name, 

And  by  the  nation  long  shall  I  be  loved, 
Because  my  lyre  their  nobler  feelings  moved : 
Because  I  strove  to  serve  them  with  my  song, 
And  called  forth  mercy  for  the  fallen  throng. 
Hear  Ciod's  command,  O  muse,  obediently, 

Nor  dread  reproach,  nor  claim  the  poet's  bay; 
To  praise  and  blame  alike  indifferent  be 

And  let  fools  say  their  say." 

The  "fallen  throng"  throughout  the  civilized  world  was 
striving  to  lift  itself  into  manhood  before  1820  came 
around.  The  example  of  America,  the  brilliancy  of 
France's  mighty  effort,  the  awakening  spirit  of  German 
unity  born  of  German  defeat,  all  these  had  their  effect 
upon  men  who  thought  and  men  who  dared  to  act. 

From  this  came  the  "  glorious  discontent "  that,  so  we 
are  assured,  "helped  the  people  of  England  contrast  the 
wrongs  they  were  suffering  with  the  rights  they  ought  to 
have;"  that  led  the  "liberals"  in  Spain  to  rise  in  their 
demand  for  constitutional  rights;  that  made  the  secret 
society  of  the  Abruzzi  —  the  "charcoal-burners" — the 
Carbonari — to  stand  as  the  champions  of  national  liberty 
in  Italy  and  southern  France  ;  and  that  stirred  the  people 
of  Central  and  South  America  to  cast  off  the  yoke  of 
Spanish  and  Portuguese  proprietorship  which,  for  more 
than  three  hundred  years,  had  weighed  so  heavily  upon 
them. 

There,  in  the  languorous  tropics  and  under  the  Southern 


88        THE    STORY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

Cross,  a  people  of  mingled  bloods  had,  through  generations 
of  oppression,  been  slowly  feeling  their  way  toward  inde- 
pendence. Ineffectual  risings  against  the  power  of  Spain 
had  been  attempted,  from  that  descendant  of  the  Incas  of 
Peru,  tortured  for  rebellion  near  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  to  the  brilliant  failure  of  Miranda  —  the  "knight- 
errant  of  liberty "  as  he  has  been  called  —  who  almost 
succeeded,  and  died  in  a  treacherous  captivity  in  the 
Spanish  prisons  of  Cadiz. 

No  reliable  leader,  however,  from  the  revolutionists  of 
South  America  appeared  until  the  rise  of  Simon  Bolivar  of 
Caracas,  sometimes  called  the  "Washington  of  South 
America."  In  1 805  this  fiery  young  patriot  had  taken  an 
oath  on  Mount  Aventine,  above  the  ruins  of  republican 
Rome,  to  give  "  liberty  to  the  land  of  the  Andes,  and  to 
pledge  his  life  to  the  freedom  of  his  native  land." 

Spain's  power  in  Europe  was  beaten  down  before  the 
imperial  will  of  Napoleon ;  Joseph  Bonaparte,  ousting  Fer- 
dinand the  Bourbon,  was  declared  king  of  Spain ;  the 
Spanish  colonies  in  America  refused  to  accept  the  change 
of  rulers  ;  and,  in  the  disturbances  that  led  to  the  return 
of  the  Bourbons,  they  attempted  to  govern  themselves,  and 
openly  revolted  against  both  the  enforced  French  king  and 
the  regency  that  attempted  to  rule  in  the  name  of  the 
exiled  Ferdinand. 

Divided  into  three  parties,  —  the  royalists,  or  Bourbon 
supporters,  the  imperialists,  or  Bonaparte  adherents,  and 
the  patriots,  or  independence  party,  —  the  struggle  for 
freedom  and  possession  went  on  for  several  years  in  the 
colonies  of  Spanish  South  America.  The  exiled  king  of 
Portugual  had  fled  to  Brazil,  and  there  set  up  his  throne ; 


HOW    THE   DESIRE   FOR   INDEPENDENCE   GREW.     89 

but  through  the  colonies  of  Spain,  from  California  to  Buenos 
Ayres  and  Chili,  revolt  grew  ;  and  under  the  lead  of  Itur- 
bide  the  Mexican,  Bolivar  the  Colombian,  and  San  Martin 
the  Argentinian,  the  people  fought  for  independence. 

Bolivar's  capture  of  Caracas,  in  August,  18 13,  gave  him 
the  title  of  "  the  Liberator ;  "  but  it  was  years  before  liber- 
ation really  came.  Defeated  again  and  again,  but  constant 
ever  to  his  youthful  vow  to  liberate  his  native  land,  in  spite 
of  disaster,  treachery,  exile,  and  attempted  assassination,  he 
held  firm  to  his  purpose,  and,  with  the  help  of  the  negro 
republic  of  Hayti,  returned  to  gather  a  new  army  of  ten 
thousand  men,  and  overthrow  the  Spanish  forces  at  Angos- 
tura in  Venezuela,  and  at  Boyaca  in  Colombia.  These 
successes  practically  freed  the  northern  portion  of  South 
America  from  Spanish  control,  and  Bolivar  was  made  presi- 
dent of  the  newly  delivered  land. 

It  was  on  the  seventeenth  of  December,  18 19,  that 
Bolivar  proclaimed  the  new  Republic  of  Colombia,  after  six 
years  of  struggle.  Meantime,  the  patriots  of  the  south, 
under  the  lead  of  the  heroic  San  Martin,  were  also  fighting 
their  way  to  freedom. 

In  September,  18 14,  San  Martin  began  to  recruit  the 
"  army  of  the  Andes  "  in  the  western  part  of  Buenos  Ayres, 
at  the  very  foot  of  the  great  mountains.  In  two  years  he 
had  a  well-drilled  and  well-clothed  army  of  nearly  five 
thousand  men  ;  and  under  the  streaming  "  flag  of  the  sun  " 
—  the  banner  of  liberty  —  he  started  upon  his  famous 
march  over  the  Andes,  in  January,  18 17, — more  wonder- 
ful, because  more  difficult  and  at  a  far  greater  height,  than 
was  even  Napoleon's  crossing  the  Alps  into  Italy.  The 
Spaniards  of  Chili  made  a  bold  stand  against  the  invaders ; 


QO        THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

but  the  patriot  army  was  well  generalled,  and  after  more 
than  a  year  of  fighting,  San  Martin  totally  overthrew  the 
Spanish  power  at  the  battle  of  the  Maipo,  a  river  of  Chili ; 
and  Argentina  and  Chili  were  free. 

Thereupon  San  Martin  determined  to  still  farther  cripple 
the  Spanish  power  and  liberate  Peru  ;  in  the  north,  Bolivar 
was  also  deciding  upon  the  same  attempt,  and  had  so  far 
extended  his  patriotic  desires  as  to  declare  himself,  not 
simply  a  Colombian,  but  a  South  American. 

"My  only  ambition,"  he  said,  "is  the  freedom  of  my 
fellow-citizens."  Thereupon  he  determined  to  achieve,  if 
possible,  the  liberation  of  all  South  America  from  the 
Spanish  yoke,  and,  after  completing  his  conquests  in  the 
north,  to  boldly  lead  an  army  against  the  Spaniards  in 
Peru. 

In  Mexico  matters  were  not  so  favorable  to  liberty. 
The  revolutionists  were  less  ably  led  ;  and  young  Iturbide, 
who  dreamed  of  independence,  but  had  no  desire  for  a 
republic,  hoped  to  secure  his  ends  through  royalist  or 
Bourbon  means.  So  there  was  a  struggle  for  leadership, 
and  the  customary  Spanish-American  rivalries ;  but  still, 
though  its  leaders  fell,  the  spirit  of  liberty  grew,  and  in 
1820  the  revolutionists  rallied  to  the  side  of  Iturbide,  and 
royalists  and  patriots  joined  for  one  last  stand  against  the 
Spanish  viceroy. 

In  Spain  itself,  after  Napoleon's  downfall,  the  weakness 
of  the  restored  Ferdinand  in  his  ill-success  against  the 
American  colonies  and  his  endeavors  at  home  to  fall  back 
upon  the  old  Bourbon  methods  which  Napoleon  had  over- 
thrown, drove  the  liberals  of  Spain  to  revolt.  The  sale  of 
Florida  to  the  United  States  in  18 19,  and  the  discontent 


HOW   THE   DESIRE   FOR   INDEPENDENCE   GREW.     91 

of  the  poorly-paid  soldiers  of  the  Spanish  army,  increased 
this  spirit  of  discontent,  and  revolt  became  organized  revo- 
lution at  Cadiz. 

In  Italy  and  Greece,  too,  the  spirit  of  independence  was 
constantly  fiashing  into  revolt ;  but,  throughout  Europe, 
the  desire  for  peace  after  the  long  struggle  against  Napo- 
leon's ambitions  was  sufficient  to  hold  in  check  for  a  time 
the  curbed  power  of  discontent  ;  and  the  force  of  the  bayo- 
net, added  to  England's  determination  for  peace,  held  the 
restored  forces  of  absolutism  in  place,  so  that  in  1820,  it 
seemed  as  if  Napoleon's  influence  had  been  overcome,  and 
that  the  five  great  powers  of  Europe  had  achieved  the 
restoration  of  the  old-time  monarchies. 

But  the  progress  of  independence  was  really  going 
forward  among  the  people  themselves.  In  England  the 
laboring  classes,  ground  down  by  the  huge  debts  which 
the  wars  against  France  had  created,  merged  their  grum- 
bling discontents  into  a  great  political  movement,  with  the 
demand  for  parliamentary  reform  and  the  rights  of  the 
people  as  its  banner  cry. 

The  leader  of  the  people  against  the  aristocracy  in  this 
"  domestic  battle "  was  William  Cobbett,  the  son  of  a 
peasant  farmer  of  Surrey.  A  residence  in  the  United 
States  had  aroused  in  him  the  desire  for  political  liberty  ; 
and  his  writings,  which  were  read  "  beside  every  cottage 
hearth  in  England,"  led  to  an  ever-increasing  popular  de- 
mand for  representation  in  parliament  and  for  universal 
suffrage. 

"  Misgovemment,"  declared  Cobbett,  "  is  the  source  of 
the  people's  misery.  Reform  parliament,  and  demand  your 
rights." 


92        THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

The  lords  and  aristocrats  of  Great  Britain  saw  in  this 
popular  discontent  the  threat  of  a  new  rebellion.  The 
government  sought  to  put  it  down  by  force  ;  and  when, 
maddened  by  the  scarcity  of  money  and  the  pangs"  of  real 
hunger,  sixty  thousand  people  assembled  in  St.  Peter's 
Fields  at  Manchester  to  petition  for  relief,  the  soldiers 
charged  upon  them  with  tragic  results,  and  the  miserable 
Prince-regent  —  falsely  called  "  the  first  gentleman  of 
Europe"  —  thanked  the  magistrates  for  this  brutal  and 
cowardly  act. 

"He  the  first  gentleman  of  Europe!"  cried  the  indig- 
nant, sham-hating  Thackeray  ;  "there  is  no  stronger  satire 
on  the  proud  English  society  of  that  day  than  that  they 
admired  this  monstrous  image  of  pride,  vanity,  and  weak- 
ness who  pretended  to  reign  over  England." 

That  was  in  1819,  and  George  was  then  Prince  Regent. 
In  1820  his  father,  the  insane  George  the  Third,  died  in  his 
enforced  restraint,  a  broken-down  old  man  —  sightless, 
deaf,  his  reason  gone.  The  regent  became  George  the 
Fourth,  and,  as  Thackeray  says,  "pretended  to  reign." 
But,  over  the  bier  of  stupid,  obstinate,  but  brave,  and  well- 
meaning  George  the  Third,  to  whom  America  owes  so 
much,  because  his  obstinacy  forced  her  into  independence 
and  greatness,  Thackeray,  who  loved  sincerity,  appealed  to 
his  "kin  beyond  sea:"  "O  brothers!  speaking  the  same 
dear  mother  tongue,"  he  said  ;  "  O  comrades  !  enemies  no 
more  ;  let  us  take  a  mournful  hand  together  as  we  stand 
by  this  royal  corpse  and  call  a  truce  to  battle.  Low  he 
lies  to  whom  the  proudest  used  to  kneel,  and  who  was  cast 
lower  than  the  poorest ;  dead,  whom  millions  prayed  for  in 
vain.     Driven  off  his  throne,  buffeted  by  rude  hands,  with 


HOW   THE   DESIRE   FOR   INDEPENDENCE   GREW.      93 

his  children  in  revolt — our  'Lear'!  Hush!  strife  and 
quarrel,  over  his  solemn  grave !  Sound,  trumpets,  a 
mournful  march.  Fall,  dark  curtain,  upon  this  pageant, 
his  grief,  his  awful  tragedy." 

As  for  Americans,  when  1820  came  they  were  too  busy 
and  too  prosperous  to  bear  any  real  malice  against  poor, 
crazy  old  King  George,  though  it  has  ever  been  the  fash- 
ion, even  to  this  day,  to  misunderstand  and  malign  him. 
The  United  States  of  America,  in  that  year  that  laid  their 
old-time  tyrant  low,  were  on  the  verge  of  what  is  known 
in  our  history  as  "the  Era  of  Good  Feeling." 

James  Monroe  was  president ;  the  Union  embraced 
twenty-three  States;  Jackson,  the  "hero  of  New  Orleans," 
was  also  the  "  conqueror  of  Florida ; "  the  tariff-act  of 
1 8 16  had  enabled  the  manufacturers  of  New  England  to 
safely  weather  the  "panic  of  18 19,"  and  the  real  struggle 
between  "  protection  and  free  trade  "  was  scarcely  begun. 
The  question  of  negro  slavery,  however,  which,  thanks  to 
Eli  Whitney's  invention  of  the  cotton-gin,  had  grown  of 
vital  importance  to  the  Southern  States,  was  already  becom- 
ing a  national  problem,  and  grew  into  still  greater  impor- 
tance, when,  in  18 19,  the  admission  of  Missouri  as  a  State 
came  before  Congress.  Should  it  be  a  free  or  a  slave  State.-* 
It  was  north  of  the  dividing-line  which,  under  the  name  of 
"Mason's and  Dixon's"  limited  the  northward  spread  of  sla- 
very, while  the  Arkansas  territory,  cut  off  from  Missouri, 
was  below  that  line.  Proposals  to  restrict  the  extension  of 
slavery  caused  much  discussion  ;  and  the  struggle  between 
free  soil  and  slave  soil,  which  was  in  time  to  convulse  the 
entire  Union,  had  already  begun. 

In  1820  the  population  of  the  United  States  had  grown 


94        THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

close  upon  ten  millions.  It  had  increased  threefold  since 
the  close,  of  the  American  Revolution,  and  emigrants  from 
over  the  sea  were  constantly  swelling  the  total.  In  all  the 
world  it  seemed  to  be  the  only  land  of  freedom  ;  and  its 
boundless  possibilities  were  already  beginning  to  be  appre- 
ciated by  the  statesmen  of  Europe,  as  well  as  by  those  who 
sought  it  as  a  home.  Industries  of  all  kinds  were  growing 
rapidly,  especially  those  connected  with  cotton,  wool,  and 
iron. 

The  increase  of  trade  and  the  development  of  commerce 
made  better  methods  of  transportation  and  communication 
necessary,  and  the  inventive  mind  of  the  Yankee  was  seek- 
ing to  meet  the  new  requirements.  Steam  was  gradually 
taking  the  place  of  the  uncertain  winds  and  the  slow-going 
horse  and  ox.  Before  1812  steamboats  were  running  on 
the  Hudson,  the  Delaware,  the  Ohio,  and  the  St.  Lawrence 
rivers.  By  18 15  steam  ferry-boats  were  plying  between 
New  York  and  Brooklyn;  in  18 16  a  steamboat  was  in 
operation  from  New  Orleans  to  Louisville;  and  in  18 19  the 
first  steamship  crossed  the  ocean  from  Savannah  to  Liver- 
pool. 

Still,  progress  throughout  the  world  in  1820,  though  sure, 
was,  indeed,  slow.  Canals,  to  be  sure,  were  improving  the 
means  of  communication  in  all  civilized  countries  ;  in  18 15 
small  coasting  steamers  were  in  use  between  ports  and 
harbors,  though  stages  and  mail-coaches  were  the  only 
means  for  quick  and  comfortable  travel  by  land. 

So  great  a  scientist  as  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  whose  in- 
vention of  the  safety-lamp,  in  18 15,  had  saved  hundreds 
of  miners'  lives,  declared  the  lighting  of  London  by  gas  to 
be  impracticable ;  photography  was  only  thought  of  as  an 


HOW   THE   DESIRE   FOR   INDEPENDENCE   GREW.     95 

unexplored  science,  and  geology  had  not  yet  attempted  the 
explanation  of  the  real  formation  of  the  earth ;  medicine 
and  surgery  were  little  more  than  crude  means  of  fighting 
off  disease  and  death,  and  pain  was  still  an  unconquerable 
and  destroying  terror ;  prisons  were  places  of  horror,  tor- 
ture, and  living  death ;  the  real  improvement  of  the  crimi- 
nal had  scarcely  been  thought  of,  while  hospitals  and 
asylums  were  but  a  trifle  better  than  prisons;  the  "vam- 
pire of  war,"  as  it  has  well  been  called,  was  still  the 
blood-sucker  of  civilization,  with  but  little  thouL^ht  amon"- 
statesmen  of  ameliorating  its  horrors,  or  preventing  it  by 
arbitration ;  philanthropy  had  not  yet  grasped  the  problem 
of  how  to  secure  a  "  broader  and  juster  brotherhood  "  ;  and 
creed,  rather  than  Christianity,  guided  the  religion  of  the 
world ;  every  land  except  America  had  a  State  Church ; 
while  Protestants  made  laws  against  Catholics,  Catholics 
ostracized  Protestants  ;  both  legislated  against  the  Jews, 
and  all  the  other  religions  of  the  world  were  simply  set 
down  as  paganism  or  heathenism,  without  a  redeeming 
quality. 

There  was  still  much  to  be  done  to  set  the  world  moving 
along  the  pathway  of  progress.  Intellectual  growth  was 
slow,  although  the  inspiration  of  war  had  quickened  the  facul- 
ties of  people.  Germany  and  P2ngland  were  the  chief  rivals 
for  the  leadership  in  literature ;  while  of  America,  where 
intellectual  thought,  was,  itself,  in  what  is  called  the  forma- 
tive stage,  Sydney  Smith,  the  English  wit,  scholar,  and 
critic,  said  contemptuously  in  1820,  that  it  had  done  "abso- 
lutely nothing  for  the  sciences,  for  art,  for  literature,"  and 
added  the  scornful  query,  "  In  the  four  quarters  of  the 
globe,  who  reads  an  American  book  ?  " 


"  All  revolutions,  like  armies  on  the 
march,  advance  with  iioneers  in  front 
.  .  .  Such  was  Simon  liolivar  of 
Caracas.  A  true  child  of  that  sunny 
land,  his  temper  was  fiery  and  capri- 
cious, but  he  was  brave  and  far-sighted, 
and  capable  of  long  sustained  effort." 
Clements  Robert  Markhant. 


THE  AGE   OF  BOLIVAR. 

INDEPENDENCE. 

(1820-18)0.) 


SIMON  BOLiy^R, 
LIBERATOR  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA. 
Born  Caracas,  Venezuela,  fuly  24, 1783. 
Died  San  Pedro,  Colombia,  Dec.  JJ,  1&30. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

HOW    THE    FIRST    QUARTER    ENDED. 
(From  1820  to  18 2 j.) 

AS  if  in  answer  to  Sydney  Smith's  shaft  of  mingled 
ridicule  and  reproach,  the  very  next  year  after  he 
asked  his  famous  question,  Washington  Irving,  William 
Cullen  Bryant,  and  James  Fenimore  Cooper  began  the  real 
literature  of  America, 

1 82 1,  indeed,  has  been  well  called  "the  birth-year  of 
American  literature  in  all  its  departments  ; "  for  in  1821 
Washington  Irving  published  "The  Sketch  Book,"  and 
established  his  claim  to  the  title  of  "  The  Father  of  Ameri- 
can Literature ;  "  Cooper  delighted  England  as  well  as 
America  with  "The  Spy,"  and  won  the  right  to  be  con- 
sidered "  the  first  American  author  to  carry  our  flag  outside 
the  limits  of  our  language  ;"  Bryant's  "  Poems,"  also  pub- 
lished in  that  year,  established  the  American  revolt  from 
Pope  and  his  copyists,  and  Christopher  North,  the  English 
critic,  declared  that  "  '  Thanatopsis '  alone  would  establish 
a  claim  to  genius," 

That  "  genius,"  as  was  intimated  in  the  last  chapter, 
was  to  find  formidable  rivals  in  the  literary  giants  of  P2ng- 
land  and  Germany,  Keats,  Shelley,  Byron,  Wordsworth, 
Coleridge,  and  Southey  were  making  English  verse  glori- 
ous ;  Scott  and  Lover,  Maria  Edgeworth  and  Jane  Austin, 
were  the  favorite  English  story-tellers  ;    Hallam  was  the 

9y 


lOO     THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

great  historian,  Foster  the  essayist,  Romilly  and  Wilber- 
force  were  authorities  in  law  and  philanthropy ;  and  the 
great  British  reviews  —  the  Edinburgh,  the  Quarterly, 
and  the  Westminster  —  were  marking  new  tendencies  of 
thought  in  English  philosophy,  criticism,  legislation,  and 
literature. 

In  Germany  a  new  school  was  succeeding  that  of  Goethe 
and  Schiller,  The  patriotic  upheaval  that  led  to  the  over- 
throw of  Napoleon  opened  the  way  to  deeper  and  more 
practical  intellectual  expression,  which  —  smothered  and 
shadowed  for  a  while  by  the  spirit  of  militarism  and  reac- 
tion which  thoroughly-frightened  Europe  permitted  to  hold 
and  disgrace  it  —  was  to  burst  finally  into  the  development 
of  that  intelligent  national  spirit  that  was  finally  to  redeem 
and  ennoble  German  thought  and  effort.  Humboldt, 
indeed,  was  still  living  and  writing  in  France  ;  and  Schlegel, 
though  a  professor  at  Bonn,  was  often  long  absent  from 
his  German  home ;  while  Fouque,  the  German  with  a 
French  name,  whose  "  Undine "  is  still  dearly  loved  by 
young  and  old,  was  a  worker  in  Paris  quite  as  much  as  at 
his  Prussian  home,  to  which,  an  invalid  soldier,  he  had 
retired  when  peace  came  once  again. 

Paris,  indeed,  was  still,  in  spite  of  all  its  misfortunes  and 
transitions,  deemed  the  centre  of  European  life  and  cul- 
ture ;  and  France,  reduced  to  its  original  limits  by  the 
mandates  of  its  conquerors,  was,  nevertheless,  the  home  of 
intellectual  achievement.  The  names  of  Chateaubriand 
and  Madame  de  Stael  stand  foremost  among  those  who 
helped  by  the  pen,  as  did  others  by  the  sword,  to  the 
overthrow  of  Napoleon's  imperialism  ;  while  the  former, 
as  the  beginner  of  a  new  school  in  literary  creation  (though 


HOW   THE   FIRST   QUARTER  ENDED.  lOI 

SO  Stout  a  supporter  of  the  Bourbons  that  the  Louis  who 
succeeded  Napoleon  declared  that  Chateaubriand's  help  in 
his  councils  was  as  good  as  one  hundred  thousand  men), 
prepared  the  way  for  such  later  productions  of  the  new 
France  as  Victor  Hugo  and  Honore  de  Balzac.  Both 
these  wonderful  Frenchmen  were  boys  when  Waterloo  was 
fought,  and  were  laying  the  foundations  of  that  marvellous 
intellectual  power  that  was,  before  the  Nineteenth  Century 
reached  middle  age,  to  startle  the  world  by  its  originality 
and  achievement. 

The  soldier,  however,  rather  than  the  thinker,  in  the 
years  between  1820  and  1825,  was  still  the  dominant  power 
in  the  world.  Wellington  had  not  yet  developed  into  the 
statesman;  and  when,  in  1822,  the  merchants  and  bankers 
of  London  presented  to  the  duke  the  splendid  "  Wellington 
shield,"  it  marked  the  devotion  of  the  English  nation  to 
"the  greatest  British  soldier"  of  the  century. 

Meantime,  in  far  off  St.  Helena,  the  man  who  was  most 
responsible  for  England's  glorification  of  Wellington,  the 
man  whom  the  "  Iron  Duke  "  flung  into  defeat  at  Water- 
loo, had  ceased  to  trouble  the  world  to  which,  though 
rigorously  imprisoned,  he  had  still  been  a  bugbear.  Napo- 
leon was  dead.  On  the  fifth  of  May,  1821,  the  conqueror 
of  Europe  breathed  his  last,  and  Europe  gave  a  great  sigh 
of  relief. 

"  W^ellington  has  sent  me  here  to  perish  on  a  rock,"  he 
said  of  his  victor  ;  but  to  the  last  he  hoped  for  escape, 
restoration,  triumph,  and  glory. 

*'  I  closed  the  abyss  of  anarchy,  and  brought  order  out  of 
chaos,"  he  declared  of  himself.  "  I  cleansed  the  Revolu- 
tion, ennobled  the  people,  and  made  the  kings  strong.     I 


STATE  N0RF.1AL  SCHOOL, 


102      THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

have  awakened  all  ambitions,  rewarded  all  merit,  and 
enlarged  the  borders  of  glory." 

It  was,  of  course,  a  piece  of  boasting  ;  but,  in  a  sense, 
it  was  the  truth.  The  "thin  young  man  of  1792,"  as 
Taine  calls  him,  "  with  lank  hair,  hollow  cheeks,  dried  up 
with  ambition,  his  heart  full  of  romantic  ideas,  who 
destroyed  five  armies,  became  master,  declared  that  any 
career  is  open  to  talent,  and  impelled  others  along  with  him 
in  his  enterprises,"  had  opened  a  new  highway  for  the 
world  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  and  by  his  very  down- 
fall had  raised  the  hopes  of  all  men  who  dreamed  of 
progress  and  of  liberty. 

But  this  "giant  five  feet  high,"  as  Balzac  has  epitomized 
him,  stood,  so  that  same  great  Frenchman  prophetically 
declared  less  than  ten  years  after  the  Corsican's  death, 
"for  a  future  which  he  alone  saw."  He  stood  for  a 
future  greater  even  than  he  himself  could  comprehend ; 
for  he  awoke  the  spirit  of  effort  and  progress,  and,  as 
Taine  estimates  him,  "  impelled  others  along  with  him  in 
his  enterprises."  Even  the  relentless  enemies  he  made 
were  instruments  for  the  progress  of  the  race  ;  and  the 
world  which  feared  him  living  and  maligned  him  dead  has 
only  lately  begun  to  understand  why  God,  who  makes  even 
the  wrath  of  men  to  praise  him,  permitted  Napoleon 
Bonaparte. 

The  shaking-up  he  had  given  to  kings  and  dynasties 
kept  the  world  unsettled  for  years.  We  have  already  seen 
how  it  impelled  South  America  to  revolution  ;  roused  the 
homeland-lovers  of  Italy,  its  half-million  "Carbonari,"  to 
protest  against  the  blundering  powers  who  sought  to  carve 
the  Italy  Napoleon  had  united  into  petty  and  despotic  prin- 


HOW  THE   FIRST   QUARTER  ENDED.  1 03 

cipalities ;  set  Spain  to  attempt  the  working  out  of  its 
own  salvation,  by  forcing  the  stupid  Bourbon  king  to  yield 
liberal  reforms,  and  encouraged  Greece  to  revolt  against 
her  Turkish  oppressors. 

To  stop  these  popular  protests,  and  still  this  shaking-up 
of  thrones,  the  troubled  kings  kept  their  soldiers  under 
arms,  and  the  Wellington  spirit  of  militarism  smothered 
insurrections,  and  held  the  people  in  check.  Austria  over- 
ran Italy ;  France  marched  an  army  into  Spain ;  Turkey 
turned  her  ruthless  destroyers  upon  Greece ;  and  every- 
where the  spirit  of  liberty  was  combated,  and  for  the  time 
suppressed  ;  for  liberty,  Uke  a  smouldering  fire,  bursts  out 
fiercely  again  and  again,  only  to  be  smothered  by  the 
weight  of  force  flung  upon  it,  until  such  time  as  the  force 
itself,  becoming  fuel  for  the  flame,  contributes  at  last  to 
the  mighty  blaze  of  freedom. 

Across  the  seas,  this  blaze  of  freedom  burned  more 
brightly  in  America  than  anywhere  else.  Led  by  the  ex- 
ample and  energy  of  Bolivar,  Spanish  America  gradually 
worked  out  its  salvation.  In  1821  Brazil  announced  its  in- 
dependence of  Portugal ;  and  when  the  prince  regent,  Dom 
Pedro,  was  sent  to  crush  rebellion,  the  people  shrewdly 
made  him  the  leader  of  revolt  by  naming  him  Perpetual 
Defender;  and  in  October,  1822,  he  was  proclaimed  con- 
stitutional emperor,  and  Brazil  declared  itself  independent. 

Peru  was  the  decisive  battle-ground  of  South  American 
independence.  San  Martin  from  the  south,  and  Bolivar 
from  the  north,  invaded  the  last  stronghold  of  Spain.  The 
two  "liberators"  met  at  Guayaquil,  in  Ecuador,  on  the 
twenty-fifth  of  July  in  1822.  There  San  Martin  generously 
and  patriotically  yielded  the  leadership  to  Bolivar;  on  the 


104     THE    STORY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

twenty-fourth  of  December  the  united  armies  won  the 
crowning  victory  of  Ayacucho  in  Peru,  and  Simon  Bolivar 
had  estabUshed  the  independence  of  South  America. 

This  earnest  effort  for  Hberty  in  the  south  profoundly 
affected  the  people  of  the  United  States,  whose  historic 
struggle  for  independence  in  1776  had  been  the  spark  that 
had  first  lighted  the  torch  of  liberty.  Sympathizing  with 
all  movements  for  deliverance  and  republican  rule,  the 
"Americans"  —  as  the  people  of  the  United  States  have 
ever  been  called —  recognized  the  commercial  and  political 
value  of  an  independent  South  America,  and  extended  to 
the  patriots  who  followed  the  lead  of  Bolivar  recognition 
and  support.  Money  was  appropriated  by  Congress  to  send 
diplomatic  missions  to  the  "independent  nations  on  the 
American  continent,"  and  interference  in  American  affairs 
by  the  princes  and  potentates  of  Europe  was  sternly  for- 
bidden. 

This  was  in  1823.  That  year  marks  an  epoch  in  the 
history  of  America  as  well  as  in  the  story  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century.  The  powers  of  Europe —  notably  Russia, 
Austria,  and  Prussia  —  had,  in  181 5,  formed  a  league  for 
the  professed  purpose  of  uniting  the  European  governments 
in  a  "Christian  brotherhood,"  to  be  called  the  Holly  AlH- 
ance.  Its  real  purpose  was  to  keep  things  as  they  were, 
exclude  all  Bonapartes  from  power,  and  overawe  the  spirit 
of  popular  liberty.  Later,  all  the  sovereigns  of  Europe 
excepting  the  king  of  England,  joined  this  mutual  admira- 
tion society.  The  Czar  of  Russia  was  the  acknowledged 
head  of  the  alliance  ;  and,  among  other  things,  this  kingly 
syndicate  considered  the  crushing  out  of  the  Spanish- 
American  republics. 


HOW   THE    FIRST   QUARTER   ENDED.  105 

Thereupon  England,  the  only  nation  that  had  not  joined 
the  Alliance,  asked  the  United  States  what  they  were  go- 
ing to  do  about  it,  and  suggested  that  England  and  America 
unite  against  the  so-called  Holy  Alliance. 

But  America  was  not  yet  ready  to  join  England  in  ex- 
treme measures.  John  Ouincy  Adams  was  secretary  of 
state,  and,  like  the  wise  statesman  he  was,  saw  that  such  a 
union  would  only  embitter  the  European  powers,  and  per- 
haps lead  to  a  movement  against  the  republic  which  might 
give  Europe  the  footing  in  America  that  was  especially  to 
be  guarded  against. 

'^  "Against  the  insidious  wiles  of  foreign  influence — I 
conjure  you  to  believe  me,  fellow-citizens,"  Washington 
had  said  in  his  immortal  Farewell  Address,  "the  jealousy 
of  a  free  people  ought  to  be  constantly  awake.  .  .  .  It  is 
our  true  policy  to  steer  clear  of  permanent  alliances  with 
any  portion  of  the  foreign  world." 

—  This  sage  advice  of  1796  was  seen,  by  the  wise  heads  of 
1823,  to  be  still  the  best  course  for  America.  So  England's 
offer  of  friendship  and  treaty  was  politely  declined.  But 
none  the  less  was  the  threatened  interference  of  the  Holy 
Alliance  to  be  firmly  met. 

James  Monroe  was  president  of  the  United  States.  He 
was  the  last  soldier  of  the  Revolution  to  hold  that  high 
office,  and  the  spirit  that  had  sent  him  charging  against 
the  Hessian  battery  at  Trenton  on  a  historic  December 
morning  determined  him  to  resist  foreign  aggression. 

In  his  seventh  annual  message  of  December,  1823,  he 
put  this  "spoke  in  the  wheel  "  of  Russia,  who  already  had 
a  footing  in  northwestern  America,  and  was  believed  to 
covet  our  western  coast. 


I06     THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

"  The  occasion  has  been  judged  proper,"  he  wrote,  "  for 
asserting  as  a  principle  that  the  American  continents  by 
the  free  and  independent  condition  which  they  have  assumed 
and  maintain  are  henceforth  not  to  be  considered  as  sub- 
jects for  future  colonization  by  any  European  power." 

Having  thus  warned  off  all  foreign  colonial  trespassing 
on  American  soil,  he  added  these  impressive  and  important 
words  : 

"  The  citizens  of  the  United  States  cherish  sentiments 
the  most  friendly  in  favor  of  the  liberty  and  happiness  of 
their  fellow-men  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  In  the 
wars  of  the  European  powers,  in  matters  relating  to  them- 
selves, we  have  never  taken  any  part,  nor  does  it  comport 
with  our  policy  to  do  so.  It  is  only  when  our  rights  are 
invaded  or  seriously  menaced,  that  we  resent  injuries  or 
make  preparation  for  our  defence.  With  the  movements 
in  this  hemisphere  we  are,  of  necessity,  more  intimately 
connected  .  .  .  and  to  the  defence  of  our  government 
which  has  been  achieved  by  the  loss  of  so  much  blood  and 
treasure,  and  matured  by  the  wisdom  of  our  most  enlight- 
ened citizens,  and  under  which  we  have  enjoyed  unexampled 
felicity,  this  whole  nation  is  devoted. 

"  We  owe  it,  therefore,  to  candor  and  to  the  amicable 
relations  existing  between  the  United  States  and  the  allied 
powers  to  declare  that  we  should  consider  any  attempt  on 
their  part  to  extend  their  system  to  any  portion  of  this 
hemisphere  as  dangerous  to  our  peace  and  safety. 

"  With  the  existing  colonies  or  dependencies  of  any 
European  power  we  have  not  interfered  and  shall  not  inter- 
fere. But  with  the  governments  who  have  declared  their 
independence,  and  whose  independence  we  have,  in  great 


HOW    THE    FIRST   QUARTER    EMDED.  lo/ 

consideration  and  in  just  principles,  acknowledged,  we  could 
not  view  any  interposition  for  the  purpose  of  oppressing 
them,  or  controlling  in  any  other  manner  their  destiny, 
by  any  European  power,  in  any  other  light  than  as  the 
manifestation  of  an  unfriendly  disposition  toward  the 
United  States." 

"^  This  was  the  official  declaration  now  famous  as  the 
"  Monroe  Doctrine."  Based  upon  the  farewell  plea  of 
Washington  in  1796  and  upon  Jefferson's  earnest  inaugural 
words  in  1801  —  "peace,  commerce,  and  honest  friendship 
with  all  nations  ;  entangling  alliances  with  none,"  — 
accepted  by  the  sober  sense  of  the  American  people  as 
both  wise  and  practical  in  those  days  of  cautious  begin- 
nings, put  into  words  by  that  great  son  of  a  great  father, 
John  Ouincy  Adams, —  the  determination,  the  writing,  and 
the  responsibility  were  James  Monroe's,  and  to  him  rightly 
belongs  the  credit  of  declaring  to  the  world  America's 
policy  of  peace,  but  of  possession  and  of  protection  as 
well, — the  historic  "Monroe  Doctrine." 

The  world  accepted  this  declaration  as  decisive  and 
final.  England,  though  refused  an  alliance,  recognized  a 
principle,  and  backed  up  President  Monroe's  announcement 
with  the  intimation  to  the  Holy  Alliance  that  any  use  of 
force  in  America  would  be  resented  by  Great  Britain  ;  the 
powers  of  Europe  understood  that  it  was  to  be  "  hands  off" 
for  them  in  the  American  continent ;  Russia  never  pro- 
gressed beyond  the  boundaries  of  Alaska,  and  in  time 
withdrew  altogether ;  and  from  that  day  to  this,  with  one 
notable  exception,  European  interference  in  American  con- 
trol has  been  confined  to  criticism  and  suggestion,  with  no 
attempt  at  force. 


I08      THE   STORY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

Balked  in  America,  the  Holy  Alliance  still  had  its  own 
way  in  Europe.  When  Italian  discontent  broke  into  the 
open  revolt  of  the  Carbonari  secret  societies  in  1821,  the 
Holy  Alliance,  handmaiden  to  that  other  "  unholy  "  affair, 
the  Holy  Inquisition,  authorized  Austria  to  crush  the  Italian 
revolution  ;  and  for  the  time  it  was  crushed. 

But  the  Holy  Alliance,  while  crushing  Italian  indepen- 
dence, awoke  in  a  great  friend  of  humanity  the  hatred  of 
tyranny.  Byron,  exiled  from  England,  mourned  over  the 
defeat  of  Italy,  flung  himself  into  the  struggles  of  Greece 
toward  freedom,  extolled  the  glorious  liberty  of  America, 
and  wrote  impassioned  verses,  which,  read  in  every  civil- 
ized tongue,  kept  alive  in  the  hearts  of  men  the  determi- 
nation to  be  free. 

It  was  the  stirring  lines  of  Byron  that  largely  influenced 
the  later  revolutions  in  Germany,  awoke  once  more  the 
slumbering  patriotism  of  Italy,  stirred  again  and  again  its 
smothered  embers  in  Spain,  helped  on  the  enthusiasm  of 
Bolivar  in  South  America,  and  from  the  Andes  to  the  Bal- 
kans, kept  alive  the  spark  of  effort  that  gradually  led  the 
world  to  "  strike  for  its  altars  and  its  fires."  With  all  his 
faults  and  all  his  failings,  Byron,  the  aristocrat  who  wor- 
shipped liberty,  stands  out  in  those  years,  between  1820 
and  1825,  as  he  yet  remains,  their  most  fascinating  person- 
ality, "the  largest  figure,"  as  Professor  Minto  declares,  "of 
a  new  era." 

His  wonderful  poetry  wept  over  the  fall  of  the  old  com- 
monwealths of  Europe,  the  degradation  of  Greece,  the 
timidity  and  indifference  of  patriots,  the  unaided  attempts 
at  independence,  and  gloried  in  the  rise  of  America.  "  One 
great  clime,"  he  said  — 


HOW   THE   FIRST   QUARTER   ENDED.  IO9 

"  Whose  vigorous  offspring,  by  dividing  ocean 
Are  kept  apart  and  nursed  in  the  devotion 

Of  Freedom,  which  their  fathers  fought  for  and 

Bequeathed  —  a  heritage  of  heart  and  hand 

And  proud  distinction  from  each  other  land 
Whose  sons  must  bow  them  at  a  monarch's  notion, 

As  if  his  senseless  sceptre  were  a  wand 
Full  of  the  magic  of  exploded  science  — 
Still  one  great  clime  in  full  and  free  defiance 

Yet  rears  her  crest,  unconquered  and  sublime, 
Above  the  far  Atlantic  1     She  has  taught 

Her  Esau  brethren  that  the  haughty  flag, 

The  floating  flame  of  Albion's  feebler  crag 
May  strike  to  those  whose  red,  right  hands  have  bought 
Rights  cheaply  earned  with  blood." 

The  "  Esau  brethren "  of  the  America  whom  Byron 
apostrophized,  had,  for  selfish  motives,  in  this  "  holy  alli- 
ance "  stamped  out  liberalism  in  southern  and  western 
Europe  ;  for  selfish  motives,  also  and  because  they  coveted 
the  lands  of  the  Turk,  they  gave  first  a  secret  and  then  an 
open  aid  to  Greece,  when  she  endeavored  to  throw  off  the 
yoke  of  the  Ottoman. 

Here,  too,  Byron's  unchained  devotion  to  what  an  ener- 
getic American  of  our  day  has  called  "the  strenuous  life," 
flung  itself  into  burning  and  now  famous  words  to  urge 
the  Greeks  to  action  : 

"  Hereditary  bondsmen !  know  ye  not 

Who  would  be  free,  themselves  must  strike  the  blow  ? 
By  their  right  arms  the  conquest  must  be  wrought  ? 
Will  Gaul  or  Muscovite  redress  ye  ?     No  ! 
True,  they  may  lay  your  proud  despoilers  low, 
But  not  for  you  will  Freedom's  altars  flame. 

Shades  of  the  Helots  !  triumph  o'er  your  foe  ; 
Greece  !  change  thy  lords,  thy  state  is  still  the  same ; 
Thy  glorious  day  is  o'er,  but  not  thy  days  of  shame." 


no     THE   STORY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

As  Taine  the  Frenchman  says,  "Byron  wars  against 
human  roguery."  He  would  trust  to  no  Holy  Alliance  to 
redeem  Greece  — 

"  Who  would  be  free,  themselves  must  strike  the  blow." 

The  Greeks  struck  that  blow  in  182 1.  On  land  and  sea 
they  drove  their  Turkish  tyrants,  proclaimed  their  inde- 
pendence in  January,  1822,  and,  even  when  menaced  by 
feud  and  faction,  still  struggled  on  to  liberty.  Byron,  fol- 
lowing his  words  with  deeds,  came  over  from  Italy  to  fight 
in  the  ranks,  and,  as  their  commander-in-chief  at  Misso- 
longhi,  died  in  1825  — a  martyr  to  Grecian  hberty,  whose 
name  is  still  held  dear  in  every  Grecian  household,  and 
whose  portrait  still  holds  the  place  of  honor  on  the  wall  of 
every  home  as  the  popular  hero  of  Greece. 

Two  great  Turks  —  or  rather  Egyptians  —  came  to  the 
front  in  this  war  of  Greek  iridependence,  Mehemet  Ali  and 
Ibrahim  Pacha.  Conquerors  for  a  while  in  Greece,  they 
were  finally  defeated  by  the  patriots  and  their  European 
allies  — for  the  Holy  Alliance  had  no  wish  to  see  Turkey 
succeed  ;  but  they,  too,  learned  lessons  of  enlightenment, 
and  later  set  on  foot  methods  of  progress  which  well-nigh 
lifted  Egypt  out  of  its  bondage  to  barbarism.  So,  as  has 
ever  been  the  case,  both  victory  and  defeat  are  of  advan- 
tage to  man. 

Byron's  example  fired  other  world-patriots  to  help  the 
cause  of  Greek  independence.  From  France  and  Ger- 
many, from  Switzerland,  from  England,  and  even  from  dis- 
tant America,  came  the  Philhellenes,  or  Friends  of  Greece, 
to  fight  as  volunteers.  But  even  the  growing  sympathy  of 
the  world,  and  such  heroic  resistance  as  the  siege  of  Misso- 


HOW   THE   PIRST   QUARTER   ENDED.  Ill 

longhi,  did  not  put  a  stop  to  the  factional  strife  among 
the  patriots,  nor  to  the  steady  advance  of  the  murderous 
crescent  borne  by  Ibrahim  and  his  Turco-Egyptians.  The 
sortie  of  Marco  Bozzaris  from  Missolonghi  against  the 
Turkish  vanguard  at  Carpenisi  made  that  Greek  patriot 
in  his  victory  and  his  death,  through  Fitz-Greene  Halleck's 
stirring  lines,  forever  famous,  and  showed  how  the  sym- 
pathy of  the  world  pulsed  in  unison  with  Greek  desire 
for  freedom  — 

"For  thou  art  Freedom's  now,  and  Fame's  — 
One  of  the  few,  the  immortal  names 
That  were  not  bom  to  die." 

The  miserably  selfish  Holy  Alliance,  which  had  crushed 
out  independence  in  Spain  and  Italy,  and  had  frowned  upon 
the  desires  of  patriots,  had  no  wish  for  Greek  success,  ex- 
cept as  it  might  weaken  Turkey.  "The  monarchs  of 
Europe,"  says  Dr.  Donaldson,  "were  afraid  that  the  rising 
of  the  Greeks  was  only  another  eruption  of  democratic 
feeling  fostered  by  the  French  Revolution,  and  thought 
that  it  ought  to  be  suppressed."  They  gave,  therefore,  no 
open  support  or  sympathy  to  the  cause  ;  and  it  looked,  in 
1 82 5,  as  if  the  growth  of  liberty  had  been  cut  short  in 
Europe  by  the  recognized  rulers  of  the  people.  Only 
across  the  Atlantic  was  independence  really  won. 

But  even  in  America  independence  did  not  mean  free- 
dom for  all.  Progress  comes  slowly  at  first;  and  while  the 
white  American,  freeing  himself  from  tyranny,  still  held 
the  black  man  in  bondage,  the  inconsistency  of  this  condi- 
tion of  slavery  in  a  land  of  freedom  had  not  yet  struck 
home  to  the  hearts  of  men.     But  public  opinion  was  begin- 


112     THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

ning  to  move  in  the  right  direction.  The  last  heretic  was 
burned  in  Mexico  in  1815,  and  that  very  year  the  break 
from  the  old-school  theology  was  made  by  liberalism ;  the 
religious  advance  in  America  was  the  forerunner  of  a 
broader  liberty,  and  the  agitation  of  the  anti-slavery  re- 
formers throughout  the  world  marked  the  first  assaults 
upon  an  institution  that  was  as  old  as  the  world  and  error. 
England  had  abolished  the  slave-trade  in  1807,  Napoleon 
in  181 5,  the  Dutch  stopped  it  in  18 14,  the  Swedes  in 
181 3,  and  Great  Britain  paid  money  for  its  extinction  by 
Portugal  and  Spain.  The  United  States,  during  the  Na- 
poleonic wars,  had  prohibited  the  importation  into  its  terri- 
tory of  negro  slaves,  and  in  1822  had  founded,  on  the 
west  coast  of  Africa,  the  republic  of  Liberia  as  a  refuge  for 
those  civilized  blacks  who  were  not  permitted  to  reside  as 
citizens  in  "civilized  "  lands. 

But  while  the  nations  of  Europe  and  the  American 
republic  combined  to  stop  the  nefarious  traffic  in  men 
under  the  protection  of  their  flags,  the  African  continent, 
from  which  negro  slaves  were  drawn,  was  still  sunk  in  the 
barbarism  that  gave  to  so  much  of  it  the  name  of  "  the 
dark  continent." 

The  least  known,  although  the  seat  of  one  of  the  oldest 
civilizations,  and  the  least  important  portion  of  the  globe 
politically,  this  vast  Southern  continent  in  the  year  1825 
was  only  just  beginning  to  enlist  the  attention  of  scientists 
and  explorers.  The  Moors  had  long  been  established  along 
the  Mediterranean  shores  ;  England,  France,  Portugal,  and 
Holland  had  foothold  or  colonies,  mostly  along  the  western 
and  southern  coast  ;  but  the  interior  was  an  unknown  and 
unexplored  land,  peopled  by  savage  black  tribes, — Ethio- 


HOW   THE    FIRST   QUARTER   ENDED.  II3 

pian,  Hottentot,  Kaffir,  and  other  of  the  negro  peoples, 
while  the  ocean  edge  of  the  continent  itself  was  known  only 
by  the  materials  it  yielded  to  commerce  under  the  names 
of  the  Grain  Coast,  the  Gold  Coast,  the  Ivory  Coast,  the 
Slave  Coast,  etc.  In  1825  the  commercial  value  of  Africa 
was,  as  I  have  said,  just  beginning  to  be  esteemed  worthy 
the  attention  of  Europeans,  although  the  unhealthiness  of 
its  climate  and  the  terrors  of  its  unknown  regions  kept  all, 
except  the  hardiest,  most  venturesome,  or  most  greedy  of 
civilized  man  from  its  borders. 

In  the  same  way  commerce,  which  had  first  attracted 
Europeans  to  the  still  older  continent  of  Asia,  had  led  them 
to  conquer  and  to  colonize  that  heathen  land  ;  and  Dutch 
and  Danes,  Spaniards,  Frenchmen,  and  Britishers,  Russians 
and  Portuguese,  alike,  strove  for  power  and  possession  with 
the  fierce  and  warlike  races  native  to  its  soil.  By  1825 
Russia,  pushing  into  Siberia,  had  stopped  for  commercial 
reason  and  for  the  Chinese  trade,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Amur  River.  She  was  on  the  point  of  rupture  with  Persia  ; 
was  worrying  Turkey  and  Armenia,  and  threatening  the 
Afghan  border.  England,  gradually  reducing  the  great 
Indian  peninsula,  was  also  waiting  to  pounce  upon  Afghan- 
istan, whose  native  owners  were  at  feud,  while,  in  the  east, 
she  was  badgering  Burmah  into  war.  Anam  was  an  un- 
willing and  grumbling  vassal  to  France,  and  the  fertile 
islands  of  the  South  China  Sea  were  rebellious  subjects  of 
Spain  and  Holland.  Japan  and  China  were  still  hermit  na- 
tions, while  the  island  continent  of  Australia,  wrested  by 
England  from  its  aboriginal  inhabitants,  was  just  emerging 
from  its  earliest  disastrous  contact  with  white  "civilization," 
which  had  first  turned  it  into  a  convict  colony,  but   was 


114      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

gradually  laying  the  foundations  for  industrial  and  agricul- 
tural improvement. 

So,  over  the  world,  as  the  first  quarter  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century  closed,  hung  still  the  shadow  of  the  sword.  Black 
slavery  in  America,  white  slavery  in  Europe,  barbarism 
and  isolation  in  Asia,  degradation  and  mystery  in  Africa  — 
all  these  were  upheld  by  the  brute  force  of  men  or  the 
tyranny  of  military  government.  To  the  age  of  Napoleon 
had  succeeded  the  age  of  Wellington  ;  but  out  of  both  had 
come  in  due  time  the  age  of  Bolivar  —  for  liberation  was 
abroad,  independence  was  the  desire  of  men,  and  liberty 
their  dream.  Invention  was  sharpening  intellect  and 
doubling  production ;  philanthropy  was  emerging  from 
dreamland  into  real  effort ;  commerce  was  clearing  the 
way  for  progress  ;  theology  was  softening  into  religion  ; 
and  men  were  becoming  more  like  world-lovers  and  workers 
than  merely  selfish  and  narrow  localists,  with  no  eye  beyond 
their  own  borders. 

To  the  student  of  the  century,  1825  shows  a  marked 
improvement  in  manliness,  method,  and  achievement  over 
1800,  even  though  aristocracy  was  still  the  governing 
power,  and  the  cause  of  the  people  moved  but  slowly 
toward  results.  But  in  1825  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  boy 
in  his  teens  ;  so,  too,  were  Tennyson,  Whittier,  Longfellow, 
Gladstone,  and  John  Bright.  Sarmento,  a  boy  of  eleven, 
was  perhaps  just  beginning  to  dream  of  what  he  was  to  do 
for  his  fellowmen  as  South  America's  intellectual  liberator 
—  the  educational  hero  of  his  continent  ;  and  Victor  Em- 
manuel, a  boy  of  five,  was  breathing  the  love  of  Italy  with 
the  airs  that  swept  down  the  Piedmont  Alps.  Cavour, 
Mazzini,   and    Garibaldi,  too,  were    boys    in    their    Italian 


now   THE   FIRST    QUARTER   ENDED.  115 

homes  ;  and  as  the  old  Lafayette,  returning  from  his  last 
visit  to  a  grateful  America  in  1824,  still  dreamed  his  dream 
of  an  impossible  epoch  of  constitutional  liberty  in  Bourbon 
France,  young  Louis  Kossuth,  who  later  was  to  make  an 
American  trip  as  hero  and  patriot,  was  hurrahing  in  the 
ranks  o*f  Hungarian  protest,  and  the  seven-year  old  Alex- 
ander of  Russia  was  learning,  even  in  the  heart  of  despot- 
ism, lessons  that  were  in  after  years  to  blossom  into  his 
greatest  gift  of  freedom  to  men.  The  boys  of  1825  were 
prophetic  of  the  sunrise  that  was  to  come  ;  for  the  old 
order  was  surely  changing  to  the  new. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

WHEN    THE    WORLD    GREW    IN    MANLINESS. 
(From  182^  to  fSjo.) 

ON  the  twenty-sixth  of  October,  1825,  Governor  De 
Witt  Clinton  of  the  State  of  New  York  officially 
opened  the  Erie  Canal,  thus  uniting  the  Great  Lakes  and 
the  Atlantic,  and  sending  the  western  development  of  the 
United  States  forward  with  a  mighty  stride  ;  on  the  very 
next  day,  October  the  twenty-seventh,  George  Stephenson, 
in  England,  opened  the  Stockton  and  Darlington  Railway, 
and  ran  the  first  locomotive  drawing  cars  that  carried  pas- 
sengers and  freight.  The  new  era  of  achievement  and 
the  conquest  of  time  and  space  had  begun. 

On  the  twenty-fifth  of  October,  1825,  Szechenyi,  the 
apostle  of  Hungarian  emancipation,  in  a  speech  before  the 
Diet,  sprang  into  leadership  as  the  advocate  of  a  new 
Hungary,  independent  of  Austrian  control ;  and,  on  the 
twenty-sixth  of  the  following  December,  Russian  revolu- 
tionists in  the  square  of  the  Senate  made  a  bold  but  inef- 
fectual stand  against  their  despotic  autocrat  ;  but,  when 
they  shouted  for  the  Constitution  they  demanded,  the 
soldiers,  whom  they  thought  to  overawe  by  their  demon- 
stration, hurrahed  too,  thinking,  however,  that  this  new 
word,  "  Constitution,"  was  a  cheer  for  the  wife  of  the  crown 
prince,  Constantine.  So  unknown  a  term  was  Constitu- 
tonal  Freedom  in  despotic  Russia  in  1825. 

lid 


TYPES  OF  THE  } 
AGE  OF  BOLIVAR  i 


Bolivar 

Monroe 

Byron 

K.ORNER 

Stephenson 

Heber 

WHEN    THE    WORLD    GREW    IN    MANLINESS.        IIJ 

That  very  year,  too,  though  white  Christian  civilization 
was  girding  itself  for  its  wrestle  for  the  possession  of  the 
world,  Christianity  throughout  the  thirty  parts  of  the 
known  world  was  but  in  the  proportion  of  five  to  twenty- 
five,  and  the  Japanese  Yeddo  and  the  Chinese  Pekin, 
closed  to  every  effort  of  this  same  white  civilization,  led  all 
others  as  the  most  populous  cities  of  the  world.  Christian 
civilization  had  a  work  on  hand,  before  which  the  fabled 
labors  of  Hercules  were  but  child's  play. 

But  the  work  was  begun  manfully,  even  though  uncon- 
sciously. In  that  same  year  of  1825  the  first  steam  voyage 
from  England  to  India  was  made  by  Captain  Johnson  in 
the  Enterprise;  and  as,  rounding  "the  Stormy  Cape" 
(where  English  colonists  in  South  Africa  were  developing 
the  region  which  English  enterprise  had  wrested  from  Dutch 
incompetency),  the  wondrous  craft  steamed  into  the  Indian 
Ocean,  it  was  the  forerunner  of  that  indomitable  spirit  of 
English  expansion  which  neither  wind  nor  tides  could 
baffle  as  it  set  out  to  advance  its  flag  in  every  quarter  of 
the  globe  —  "a  power,"  as  the  American  Webster,  in  now 
famous  words,  declared  in  less  than  ten  years  after  the 
voyage  of  the  Enterprise,  "  which  has  dotted  over  the 
surface  of  the  whole  globe  with  her  possessions  and  mili- 
tary ports,  whose  moving  drum-beat  following  the  sun  and 
keeping  company  with  the  hours,  circles  the  earth  with 
one  continuous  and  unbroken  strain  of  the  martial  airs  of 
England." 

That  voyage  of  the  Enterprise  meant  the  quicker  absorp- 
tion, by  the  five  parts  Christian  civilization,  of  the  twenty- 
five  parts  Pagan  stagnation.  It  meant  the  attempted  solu- 
tion, by  England,  of  the  great  problem  of  Asiatic  control 


Il8     THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

and  the  opening  of  what  we  call  to-day  "  spheres  of  influ- 
ence." 

It  meant,  too,  a  marvellous  growth  in  that  forerunner  of 
Christian  expansion  —  the  Missionary  Society,  an  inhuence 
greater  than  the  drumbeat  and  the  flag  in  the  progress  of 
the  world. 

When  the  Nineteenth  Century  began,  there  were  but 
seven  missionary  societies  in  existence.  By  1825  these 
seven  had  grown  into  fifteen,  and  the  gates  of  heathen 
isolation  were  already  being  stormed  by  Christian  crusaders. 

So  religion  and  commerce  were  going  forth,  hand  in 
hand,  to  occupy  the  world.  It  was  often  an  ill-assorted 
partnership,  for  the  ways  of  business  are  not  always 
friendly  to  those  of  conversion  ;  but,  even  when  most 
antagonistic,  they  helped  each  other  until,  in  1832,  the 
clarion  summons  of  the  Englishman  Heber  in  his  "  Mis- 
sionary Hymn"  of  1820  could  be  answered  by  the  tri- 
umphant notes  of  the  author  of  "  America  "  as  he  sang 

"  The  morning  light  is  breaking, 
The  darkness  disappears." 

"  From  Greenland's  icy  mountains  to  India's  coral 
strand,"  in  the  year  1825,  the  army  of  Christian  occupation 
was  already  in  motion. 

Past  Greenland's  icy  mountains  other  than  Christian 
missionaries  were  pushing  their  way.  In  1825  the  spirit 
of  enterprise  and  the  love  of  adventure  were  endeavoring 
to  solve  the  secret  of  the  North  Pole  and  find  that  North- 
west Passage  that  should  give  the  commerce  of  Europe 
the  "  short  cut  to  Cothay  "  which  had  been  the  endeavor 
of  discoverers  since  the  days  of  Columbus  and  his  com- 


WHEN    THE    WORLD    GREW    IN    MANLINESS.         I  19 

panions.  The  Englisli  naval  officer,  Lieutenant  Parry, 
was  in  that  year  trying  for  the  third  time  to  force  his  two 
ships  into  the  western  seas  at  Barrow  Sirait ;  Captain, 
afterwards  Sir  John  Franklin  was  seeking  the  open  Polar 
Sea  by  an  overland  route  ;  and  on  the  nineteenth  of  May, 
1825,  Captain  Beechey,  in  the  Blossom,  attempted  to  force 
the  passage  by  a  western  route.  Nothing  conclusive  was 
established  by  their  expeditions  beyond  a  study  of  the 
"lay  of  the  land  ;  "  but  in  1829  a  combined  scientific  and 
naval  English  expedition,  under  command  of  Sir  John  Ross, 
made  another  attack  upon  the  icy  ramparts  of  the  Pole. 
This  resulted  in  little  beyond  establishing  the  true  position 
of  the  "North  magneiic  pole"  as  running  through  the 
Gulf  of  Bothnia ;  and  Ross's  expedition  for  three  years  and 
more  was  practically  lost,  imprisoned  in  Arctic  ice. 

Below  the  Pole,  in  the  great  north  land,  the  lines  of 
commercial  enterprise  pushed  far  into  the  homes  of  the 
fur-bearing  animals  ;  and  the  two  great  fur  trusts,  —  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  and  the  Northwest  Company,  — 
bitter  and  often  bloody  rivals  for  the  monopoly  of  the  fur 
trade,  had,  by  1825,  united  into  one  company,  on  equal 
terms,  and  England  thus  controlled  the  valuable  fur  trade 
of  the  North. 

Across  the  still  unknown  regions  of  the  Northern  United 
States,  from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  Pacific,  John  Jacob 
Astor  had  merged  rival  traders  into  the  American  Fur 
Company,  founded  Astoria  on  the  Columbia  River  as  his 
Pacific  port,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  the  immense  Astor 
fortune.  In  Russian  America  (now  Alaska),  and  in  Siberia 
and  Northern  Europe,  the  Russian  Fur  Companv  was 
pursuing    the   same   commercial    enterprise    to    warm   the 


120     THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

luxurious  ones  of  earth,  which  had  sent  into  the  frozen 
regions  of  the  north  adventurers  and  traders  to  wrest  from 
savao-e  Indian  and  barbarous  Siberian  the  business  of  strip- 
pino-  from  sea  and  land  animals,  from  seal  and  otter, 
beaver,  martin,  and  sable,  the  skins  designed  for  the  use 
of  man. 

About  that  time,  too,  the  trade  in.  buffalo-robes  and 
skins  became  an  important  American  enterprise,  and  began 
gradually  to  decimate  the  enormous  roving  bands  of  the 
great  "wild  cow"  of  the  western  plains.  Nineteenth 
Century  enterprise  was  already  beginning  to  burst  its 
bonds. 

With  the  growth  of  enterprise  came  also  the  growth  of 
luxury,  learning,  intelligence,  and  invention.  Music,  art, 
and  literature  became  more  widely  recognized  as  factors 
or  results  of  progress,  and  the  people  gradually  opened 
their  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  world  was  made  for  them 
and  not  for  the  few  who  claimed  dominion  over  them. 
Even  "the  man  with  the  hoe"  was  less  brutal,  degraded, 
and  blind  to  his  own  manhood  than  were  his  fathers  before 
the  days  of  the  bloody  but  glorious  Revolution  in  France. 
Jean  Francois  Millet,  who,  later,  made  his  immortal  draw- 
ing of  this  stolid  son  of  the  soil,  was  himself,  in  1825,  a 
boy  of  eleven  years,  working  beside  his  peasant  father  in 
the  dull  fields  of  Barbizon,  but  beginning  to  look  up  from 
the  soil,  that  keeps  men  beasts,  to  the  sky  that  makes 
them  men. 

In  Germany  the  princes  of  the  big  and  little  kingdoms 
and  duchies  that  really  made  up  the  nation  were  as  slow 
in  keeping  their  promises  of  popular  liberty  as  they  had 
been  quick  to  make  them  when  the  spectre  of  Napoleonism 


WHEN    THE    WORLD   GREW    IN    MANLINESS.        121 

set  every  princeling  shivering  with  anxiety  ;  but  the  people 
were  reading  again,  as  they  had  read  many  a  time  before, 
the  old  Bible  injunction,  "  Put  not  your  trust  in  princes." 
The  oftener  they  read  the  warning,  however,  the  more 
heed  they  were  beginning  to  give  to  it.  In  1825  the  re- 
actionary or  kingly  power  was  still  too  strongly  intrenched 
in  Germany  and  Austria,  thanks  to  the  haunting  memories 
of  the  French  Revolution  and  of  Napoleon,  to  admit  of 
any  real  political  progress ;  but  this  subserviency  could 
not  long  continue;  provincial  "diets,"  or  deliberative  as- 
semblies, in  which  the  people  had  a  certain  representation, 
were  granted  in  Prussia  and  other  German  states  ;  Goethe 
still  lived  to  finish  his  wonderful  poem  of  progress, 
"  Faust,"  and  to  show  himself,  in  his  old  age,  the  prophet 
of  mankind  under  the  new  order  of  things  ;  while  Uhland's 
stirring  songs  were  sinking  so  deeply  into  the  dissatisfied 
popular  heart  of  his  fatherland  as  to  become  folk-songs  of 
Germany. 

Poet  and  student,  however,  were  not  in  accord  with  the 
rulers  of  Germany  in  1825.  They  were,  indeed,  what  is 
called  in  diplomatic  language  persona  noji  grata  —  persons 
not  wanted.  Uhland  and  Arndt  were  deprived  of  their 
professorships  because  of  their  "popular"  leanings;  the 
brothers  Grimm  (best  known  to  American  boys  and  girls 
as  the  authors  of  that  ever  famous  book  of  fairy  stories 
dear  to  us  all  as  "  Grimm's  Tales,"  but  really  leaders  in 
German  scholarship  and  philology)  were  "  sent  packing  " 
from  the  university  where  they  were  professors,  because  of 
their  love  for  German  independence  and  union  ;  and  other 
scholars  and  thinkers  were  disgraced  for  similar  reasons, 
while  the  young  men  who,  as  students,  dared  to  think  and 


122      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

speak  of  liberty  were  suppressed  with  stern  hand.  Hum- 
boldt still  found  the  air  of  Paris  more  healthful  for  his 
great  scientific  labors  than  his  native  Germany ;  and 
Berzsenyi,  Hungary's  greatest  poet,  almost  fell  a  victim, 
for  his  fervent  imtriotism,  to  Austria's  hatred  of  the  Hun- 
garian's passion  for  his  fatherland. 

The  greatest  advance  in  practical  independence  and 
popular  liberty  has  not,  however,  always  been  made  by 
those  most  rigorously  held  down  by  tyranny,  but  by  those 
who,  knowing  the  benefits  of  freedom,  refuse  to  be  domi- 
nated by  autocratic  methods,  or  to  be  deprived  of  the  op- 
portunities for  progress.  The  English-speaking  lands  are 
those  which  have  soonest  achieved  independence,  and 
most  outspokenly  combated  dropping  back  beneath  the 
yoke. 

In  1825  Great  Britain  was  in  the  mood  for  reforming 
abuses ;  her  people  were  most  determinedly  bent  upon 
going  a  step  higher  in  social,  political,  and  domestic  free- 
dom. Neither  in  England  nor  Scotland  were  the  people 
represented  in  parliament  ;  they  had  no  word  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  their  native  land  ;  they  had  neither  voice,  influ- 
ence, nor  authority  in  its  councils.  A  seat  in  parliament 
was  the  gift  of  the  "  lord  of  the  manor  "  represented  there, 
and  the  member,  in  most  instances,  was  the  tool  or  creature 
of  the  great  man  who  controlled  the  borough  ;  seats  were 
bought  and  sold  like  merchandise  ;  the  ministers  of  the 
king  were  the  real  rulers  of  England,  and  did  their  best  to 
oppose  and  antagonize  the  free  right  of  Englishmen  to 
speak  as  they  felt  as  to  the  state  of  things  in  England. 

The  French  Revolution,  however,  hateful  though  it  was 
to  Englishmen,  yet  had   its  influence  upon  them.      The 


WHEN    TlIK    WORLD    CKKW    IN    MANLINESS.        123 

French  people  had  asserted  themselves  ;  if  need  be,  the 
English  people  could  do  so  too. 

When  the  miserable,  graceless,  and  useless  person  who 
posed  as  king  of  England,  "  by  the  grace  of  God,"  under 
the  title  of  George  the  Fourth  (whom  Thackeray  the  I'^ng- 
lishman  disposes  of  by  one  scathing  bit  of  comparison  with 
the  great  George  of  America  —  Washington,  and  asks, 
"which  is  the  nobler  character  to  admire?")  —  when  this 
English  George,  wrongly  called  a  gentleman,  sought  to  re- 
peat the  story  of  licnry  the  Eighth,  with  Henry's  ability 
left  out,  and  "  put  away "  his  true  and  lawful  wife,  the 
ministers  of  the  king  attempted  to  "  back  up  "  their  good 
for-nothing  monarch  in  his  wickedness,  and,  in  1820,  en- 
deavored to  force  Parliament  to  pass  a  bill  of  "  pains  and 
penalties"  to  degrade  the  queen  in  the  true  Henry  the 
Eighth  style.  But  they  reckoned  without  their  host.  For 
the  people  of  England  almost  rose  in  revolt. 

"  God  bless  you  !  We  will  bring  your  husband  back  to 
you,"  cried  a  British  working-man  to  the  persecuted  queen  ; 
and  the  people  of  England,  without  influence,  without 
representation,  without  political  rights  though  they  were, 
would  have  done  this  had  not  the  death  of  the  unfortunate 
Queen  Caroline,  in  1821,  prevented  the  consummation  of 
their  manly  indignation. 

But  what  they  could  not  do  for  her,  they  could  do  for 
the  England  which  king  George  and  his  ministers  misrepre- 
sented and  misruled.  A  storm  of  indignation  against  king 
and  ministers  swept  the  country  ;  the  moral  feeling  as  well 
as  the  intelligence  of  Englishmen  asserted  themselves  ;  the 
king,  even  though  hedged  about  with  all  the  false  preroga- 
tives of  "  royalty,"  found  himself  detested  ;  the  ministers 


124      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

were  held  responsible  for  the  popular  discontent  and  rest- 
lessness, and  the  people  demanded  a  reform  of  parliamen- 
tary methods.  But  when  a  fortunate  death  in  the  cabinet 
raised  the  statesman  Canning  to  power,  a  new  day  dawned 
for  England.  As  Mr.  Gardiner,  the  English  historian, 
declares,  "  the  failure  of  the  ministers  to  carry  the  Bill  of 
Pains  and  Penalties  was  a  turning-point  in  the  history  of 
the  country." 

Canning  asserted  the  right  of  England  to  free  action,  in 
spite  of  the  "  Holy  Alliance."  He  believed  in  the  greater 
right  of  the  English  people  to  govern  themselves.  He 
protested,  in  behalf  of  England,  against  the  use  of  force 
against  the  patriots  of  Spain  and  Italy.  He  recognized 
the  new  republics  of  revolted  South  America.  He  spoke 
for  the  freedom  of  Greece.  He  voiced  the  English  people's 
defiance  of  despotism,  headed  the  party  of  progress,  and 
was  joyfully  accepted  and  hailed  as  "the  champion  and 
spokesman  of  national  and  popular  liberty." 

He  died  in  1827,  a  martyr  to  his  own  exertions  in  behalf 
of  right  and  progress  ;  but  his  work  lived  after  him.  Be- 
cause of  his  policy  and  his  eloquent  appeals,  the  barriers 
of  English  aristocracy  weakened.  The  people  demanded 
the  redress  of  wrongs  that  held  them  down ;  commercial 
and  religious  selfishness  were  replaced  by  a  more  generous 
spirit  in  church  and  trade ;  Roman  Catholics  and  Protes- 
tant "  dissenters,"  so  long  excluded  from  office  and  oppor- 
tunity, were  allowed  a  voice  and  vote  ;  the  death  penalty 
for  minor  crimes  and  slight  offences  was  removed ;  the 
iniquitous  laws  respecting  the  importation  of  corn  were 
modified  ;  concessions  to  the  people  were  demanded  and 
granted,  and   when,  in    1830,   George  the  Fourth  closed 


WHEN   THE   WORLD    GREW    IN    MANLINESS.        1 25 

his  good-for-nothing  hfe,  the  people  found  that  even  royal 
protests  could  not  stand  against  the  popular  will,  and  that 
the  "  last  of  the  Georges  "  had  been  a  reformer  in  spite  of 
himself. 

Wellington,  victor  of  Waterloo,  was  then  prime  minister 
of  England.     In  spite,  too,  of  his  military  style  of  ordering 
things,  in  the  face  of  his  dislike  and  scorn  of  the  popular 
will,  the  "  Iron  Duke  "  was  forced  to  yield  to  the  majority 
of  his  countrymen,  and  second  the  demands  of  Englishmen 
that  miUtary  despotism  and  royal  tyranny  should  be  curbed. 
Out  of  this  recognition  of  the  voice  of  the  real  England 
came  the  union  against  the  Turkish  butchers  in  Greece. 
Wellington  cared  little  for  the  Greek  patriots,  but  he  did 
wish  to  "head  off"  Russia.     So,  in  1826,  he  proposed  to 
the  new  Czar  Nicholas,  that  Russia  and  England  should 
jointly  "  interfere  "  in  behalf  of  Greece.     The  next  year 
France  joined  the  alliance  ;  and  on  the    20th  of  October, 
1827,  the  combined  fleets  of  England,  France,  and  Russia, 
under   command  of    an   English   admiral,   annihilated   the 
fleets  of  Turkey  and  Egypt  at  the  battle  of  Navarino,  com- 
pelled the  retreat  of  Ibrahim  Pasha  and  his  soldiers  from 
their  campaign  of  devastation,  and  virtually  brought  about 
the  independence  of  Greece.       For  after  a  brief  war  be- 
tween Russia  and  Turkey,  when   Russian  troops  invaded 
Turkey,  both  in  Europe  and  Asia,  and  brought  about  the 
peace  of  Adrianople  in    1829,  Turkey  gave  up  the  fight; 
and,  in  1830  the  Conference  of  London  officially  declared 
the  independence  of  Greece. 

In  that  very  year  of  1830,  however,  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton announced  himself  as  ojiposed  to  parliamentary  reform  ; 
belicvino-  in  force  rather  than  in  concession,  he  would  have 


126      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

put  down  the  popular  demand  by  the  bayonet ;  he  declared 
that  it  was  simply  an  agitation  for  change  by  fanatics  and 
disorderly  persons ;  and  he  resisted  all  reform  so  stoutly, 
that  he  became  unpopular,  and  in  November,  1830,  was 
forced  to  resign  as  Prime  Minister  of  England. 

In  that  very  year  of  1830,  too,  George  Stephenson  in- 
augurated what  may  be  considered  as  really  the  modern 
era  of  railways  by  opening  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester 
Railway  —  the  first  "long  line" — and  driving  his  newly- 
invented  locomotive  the  "  Rocket "  up  to  a  surprising 
speed  of  twenty-nine  miles  an  hour. 

"But  suppose  a  cow  should  get  on  the  track.?"  queried 
one  of  the  noble  lords  before  whom  the  indomitable  North 
Country  farmer's  son  was  explaining  his  invention. 

"  It  would  be  vera  bad  for  the  coo,  me  lord,"  replied 
Stephenson  quietly. 

Others  than  the  old  fogies  who  stood  in  the  way  of  in- 
ventive genius  learned  the  same  lesson.  The  Duke  of 
Wellington,  seeking  to  oppose  the  popular  will,  tried  to 
stand  on  the  track  in  front  of  the  spirit  of  progress  in 
1830,  and  found  out  that,  as  Stephenson  declared,  such  a 
position  was,  "vera  bad  for  the  coo."  1830  was  really  the 
birthday  of  reform. 

Between  1825  and  1830  reform  was  in  the  air  not  only 
in  matters  political,  but  in  almost  all  branches  of  human 
thought.  The  mind  of  man  was  gradually  being  freed 
from  the  chains  of  centuries  of  blind  belief,  and  was  reach- 
ing out  for  "  exactness  "  in  all  the  sciences  —  from  law 
and  life  to  religion,  medicine,  and  manners. 

While  Stephenson,  the  farmer  collier's  son,  was  develop- 
ins:  the  locomotive  and  revolutionizing  the  means  of  trans- 


WHEN   THE    WOF<LD    GREW    IN    MANLINESS.        1 27 

portation,  Pestalozzi,  the  Swiss  school-teacher,  an  old,  old 
man  of  eighty,  was  fighting  his  last  fight  for  his  especial  re- 
form in  education,  which  was  really  to  be  the  education  of 
the  people, 

"I  have  no  time  to  bother  with  the  alphabet,"  Napoleon 
had  told  him,  when  he  sought  to  interest  that  great  but 
short-sighted  emperor  in  his  practical  theories.  But  in 
1825,  a  German  soldier  who  had  fought  against  Napoleon, 
Frederick  Frocbel,  "  a  pupil  of  Pestalozzi,  and  a  genius  like 
his  master,"  was  starving  himself  to  found  the  educational 
system,  developed  from  Pestalozzi's  idea,  which  has  practi- 
cally made  over  all  the  first  principles  of  education.  In 
America,  Horace  Mann,  a  young  lawyer  of  Massachusetts, 
was  fighting  the  battle  of  religious  liberty  against  sectarian 
appropriations  for  educational  purposes,  and  was  gradually 
forming  the  plan  which  made  him,  ten  years  later,  the 
"  Father  of  the  American  Common  School  system." 

Those  five  years,  too,  showed  a  marked  advance  in  medi- 
cine and  surgery.  Pathology,  or  the  doctrine  of  disease, 
was  progressing  along  new  lines.  The  Frenchmen  Brous- 
sais  and  Laennec,  Louis  and  Bayle  were  developing  new 
methods  in  medical  research  ;  Richard  Bright  the  English- 
man, and  Abcrcrombie  the  Scotchman,  were  linking  their 
names  to  important  medical  discoveries,  while  Romberg 
the  German  was  revolutionizing  the  study  of  nervous  dis- 
eases, and  Hahnemann  the  Saxon  was  living  a  martyr  to 
his  own  convictions  that  a  small  doze  of  physic  can  cure  as 
thoroughly  as  a  big  one,  and  his  other  theory  that  the  same 
thing  that  will  make  a  well  man  sick  may  make  a  sick  man 
well  —  homeopathy. 

The  old  order  was  surely  passing.      On  the  same  re- 


128      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

markable  day  —  the  fourth  of  July,  1826  —  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence 
— died  the  two  men  most  responsible  for  that  immortal  docu- 
ment, Thomas  Jefferson  of  Virginia,  and  John  Adams  of 
Massachusetts.  The  principle  of  independence  for  which 
they  stood  and  which  they  had  established  had  led  to  the 
new  American  idea  of  performance,  and  their  experiment 
in  self-government  had  blossomed  into  the  "  overruling 
sentiment  of  a  common  nationality." 

In  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  the  spokesman 
and  champion  of  the  "American  idea  "  was  Daniel  Web- 
ster. "Those  are  daily  dropping  from  among  us,"  he  said, 
"who  established  our  liberty  and  our  government.  The 
great  trust  now  descends  to  new  hands.  .  .  .  The  spirit  of 
the  times  strongly  invites  us.  Our  proper  business  is  im- 
provement. Let  our  age  be  the  age  of  improvement.  In 
a  day  of  peace  let  us  advance  the  arts  of  peace  and  the 
works  of  peace.  Let  us  develop  the  resources  of  our  land, 
call  forth  its  powers,  build  up  its  institutions,  promote  all 
its  great  interests,  and  see  whether  we  also,  in  our  day 
and  generation,  may  not  perform  something  worthy  to  be 
remembered." 

Webster's  suggestion  was  a  grand  one,  and  it  was  in 
time  brought  about.  But  even  in  a  free  land  progress  is 
slow ;  and  the  thirteen  colonies,  now  nearly  doubled  in 
number  as  sovereign  and  growing  States,  were  developing 
the  rivalries  .and  selfishnesses  which  seem  to  be  accompani- 
ments to  freedom.  Liberty  is  ever  jealous  of  its  rights ; 
and  a  republic  has  always  been  threatened  by  partisanship 
and  faction,  from  the  days  of  the  Roman  to  those  of  the 
Boer;  and,  between  1825  and    1830,  this  check  on  a  too- 


WHEN   THE    WORLD    GREW    IN    MANLINESS.        129 

confident  freedom  was  putting  true  freedom  to  a  bitter 
test.  In  Greece,  newly  freed  from  centuries  of  Moslem 
mastery,  feud  and  faction  were  already  at  work  ;  in  the 
republics  of  South  America,  jealousy  and  suspicion  were 
undermining  true  patriotism  ;  and  in  the  better-established 
United  States  the  "  Era  of  Good  Feeling  "  was  giving  way 
to  the  era  of  misgiving 

In  1826  Bolivar,  the  liberator,  proposed  the  first  "Pan- 
American  Congress" — a  convention  of  all  the  American 
republics  for  a  unity  of  action  and  interest.  It  met  at 
Panama  on  the  twenty-second  of  June,  1826  ;  but  the 
United  States  was  not  represented,  much  as  President 
John  Quincy  Adams,  that  far-seeing  statesman,  desired  it. 
He  saw  in  the  Congress  an  opportunity  to  extend  the  in- 
fluence of  the  United  States  over  all  America,  and  cement 
the  Monroe  Doctrine.  But  certain  members  of  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  disliked  the  idea  of  sitting  at 
tables  with  the  representatives  of  the  black  republic  of 
Hayti ;  opposition  and  delay  hampered  decisive  action  ; 
the  great  republic  lost  its  golden  opportunity,  and  caste 
and  foolish  fear  made  the  Pan-American  Congress  of  1826 
a  dismal  failure. 

The  republics  of  Colombia,  Central  America,  Peru,  and 
Mexico,  in  this  Congress  of  Panama,  did  "mutually  agree 
and  confederate  themselves  in  peace  and  war  in  a  perpetual 
contract  to  maintain  the  sovereignty  and  independence  of 
the  confederated  powers  against  foreign  interference,  and 
to  secure  the  enjoyment  of  unalterable  peace"  —  and  then 
they  began  to  be  jealous  of  one  another !  Bolivar  the  lib- 
erator was  accused  of  ambitious  designs  in  1829,  and  forced 
into  exile  and  death  ;  San  Martin,  the  patriot  of  the  south, 


130      THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

was  allowed  to  die  in  France  in  poverty  and  neglect ;  and 
John  Ouincy  Adams,  the  best  American  of  his  day,  was 
defeated  at  the  polls  and  retired  before  the  "  rising  star  " 
of  American  democracy  —  Andrew  Jackson,  the  hero  of 
New  Orleans.  The  trail  of  the  sword  still  showed  itself 
across  the  path  of  progress,  and  the  "  ingratitude  of  repub- 
lics "  was  once  again  forcibly  displayed. 

But  this  apparent  "  ingratitude,"  as  the  enemies  of 
equality  liked  to  call  it,  was  simply  a  balance-wheel  to 
what  should,  perhaps,  be  called  an  over-confident  indepen- 
dence. The  jealousies  of  South  America,  the  factions  in 
Greece,  the  rivalries  in  the  United  States,  were  all  neces- 
sary to  a  real  progress.  Contentment  is  not  always  a  vir- 
tue ;  and  the  "  victories  "  of  the  opposition  were  really,  as 
Dr.  Edward  Channing  says,  "  a  triumph  of  the  new  forces 
of  unrest  in  political  and  social  life  which,  sooner  or  later, 
was  certain  to  come." 

In  1830  the  shadow  of  Napoleon's  despotism  was  gradu- 
ally passing  from  the  world.  Europe,  smarting  under  the 
selfish  despotism  of  reactionary  kings  and  princes,  was 
again  in  unrest,  and  a  new  "  shaking  up  "  and  readjustment 
seemed  imminent,  alike  in  Europe  and  America.  But 
Africa  still  lay  in  darkness,  while  Asia  was  openly  threat- 
ened by  the  domination  of  Europe.  The  first  quarter  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century,  which  had  closed  in  peace,  gave 
way  to  the  second  quarter  —  the  courier  of  a  growing 
democracy  ;  and  the  rider  who  galloped  into  the  arena  as 
the  herald  of  the  common  people  was  "  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable men  America  has  produced  "  —  Andrew  Jackson 
of  Tennessee. 


"  A  typical  ntau  of  the  people, 
Andrew  Jackson  proved  himself  a 
born  leader  of  men  in  time  of  stress, 
and  one  admirably  fitted  to  ride  the 
storm  and  direct  the  forces  of  the  new 
democracy." 

Edward  Channing. 


THE  AGE    OF   JACKSON. 

DEMOCRACY. 

{1830-1840.) 


y4NDREIV  JACKSON, 

CHAMPION  OF  DEMOCRACY. 

Born  IVaxhaw  Settlement,   South  Carolina,  March  13,  H^l, 

Died  Hermitage,  Tennessee,  June  S,  /S^J. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

HOW    THE    WORLD    HAD    A    NEW    SHAKING    UP. 
{From  i8jo  to  /Sjj.) 

THREE  decades  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  —  1810, 
1820,  1830  —  had  passed.  To  the  age  of  Napoleon, 
the  imperialist,  had  succeeded  the  age  of  Wellington,  the 
soldier,  and,  to  that,  the  age  of  Bolivar,  the  liberator. 

With  1830  a  new  age  dawned  upon  mankind,  —  the  age 
of  Jackson,  the  .democrat. 

The  world  was  ripe  for  this  new  departure  in  ideas,  faith, 
and  government.  The  people  had  learned  their  strength, 
and  were  preparing  to  take  a  hand  in  "  running  things." 
Reform  in  England,  independence  in  South  America,  ex- 
pansion in  Asia,  the  divine  right  of  the  people  in  the 
United  States  —  all  these  were  profoundly  affecting  Europe, 
and  once  again  startling  and  unsettling  the  "  God-given  " 
royal  rulers  of  the  earth. 

Even  in  literature,  or  rather  in  poetry, —  the  real  mirror 
of  the  age,  —  was  this  condition  apparent.  In  1830  Be- 
ranger  was  making  songs  for  all  France  to  sing,  and  declar- 
ing that  "  My  soul  has  always  vibrated  with  that  of  the 
people;"  while  young  Victor  Hugo,  triumphing  with  his 
masterpiece  of  "  Hernani,"  was  putting  into  his  verses  and 
his  plays  the  essence  of  his  dream  of  real  liberty  and  great- 
ness for  France.  Manzoni  the  Italian  was  preaching  to  his 
countrymen  that  only  as  patriotism   is  linked  with  virtue 

133 


134      THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

can  it  insure  true  freedom  ;  and  Ferdinand  Freiligrath,  a  boy 
in  an  Amsterdam  bank,  was  developing  that  love  for  a  free 
Germany  that  soon  found  expression  in  such  home-loving 
songs  as  his  "  Emigrants,"  and,  later,  made  him  a  man  of 
action  and  a  patriot.  Heine,  the  German  poet-satirist,  was 
poking  fun  at  the  out-of-date  "nobility"  of  France,  and  sharp- 
ening the  biting  weapons  of  his  wit  and  song,  that  were  to 
make  him  in  after  years,  though  weak  and  worn,  the  stoutest 
champion  for  "liberty  of  conscience,  action,  and  opinion." 

"  If  all  Europe  were  to  become  a  prison,"  said  Heine, 
"America  would  still  present  a  loop-hole  of  escape  ;  and  God 
be  praised  !  that  loop-hole  is  larger  than  the  dungeon  itself." 

The  "  loop-hole "  was  certainly  in  those  days  showing 
the  world  how  large  its  proportions  and  possibilities  were. 
Although  the  area  of  the  United  States  was  the  same  in 
1840  that  it  was  in  1830,  the  population  had  been  swelled 
by  five  millions  in  those  ten  years,  the  twelve  million  in- 
habitants of  1830  becoming  the  seventeen  million  of  1840. 
A  large  proportion  of  so  much  of  that  increase  as  came  from 
beyond  the  boundaries  of  the  republic  was  found  in  the 
home-building,  home-loving  Germans,  whom  Freiligrath  in 
his  verses  "  the  Emigrants  "  begged  to  remain  in  Germany ; 
and  all  of  the  immigrants  to  America  were  attracted  by 
that  spirit  of  democracy  for  which  the  great  republic  and 
its  democratic  president  then  stood  —  the  spirit  embodied. 
in  those  warning  verses  of  Manzoni,  the  Italian  singer  of 
liberty  and  democracy. 

"  We  are  all  made  in  one  likeness  holy, 
Ransomed  all  by  one  only  redemption, 
Near  or  far,  rich  or  poor,  high  or  lowly, 
Wherever  we  breathe  in  life's  air; 


HOW  tup:  world  had  a  new  shakin(;  up.    135 

We  are  brothers  by  one  great  pre-emption, 
Bound  all ;    and  accursed  be  its  wronger, 
Who  would  ruin  by  right  of  the  stronger. 
Wring  the  hearts  of  the  weak  by  despair." 

The  "  right  of  the  stronger  "  was  to  be  severely  tested 
in  that  year  of  1830;  and  just  who  was  the  stronger  was 
to  be  asked  in  more  lands  than  one. 

France  made  the  query  and  opened  the  ball.  Charles 
the  Tenth,  an  old  and  empty-headed  Bourbon,  was  king  of 
France.  The  priests,  rather  than  the  people,  ruled  his 
actions ;  and  when  the  newspapers  sought  to  speak  the 
popular  disapproval  openly,  the  liberty  of  the  press  was 
abridged.  Then  the  National  Guard  —  the  citizen  soldiers 
of  France  —  openly  hissed  the  king  who  distrusted  the 
people  ;  and  the  people  themselves,  enraged  at  the  disband- 
ment  of  the  National  Guard,  demanded  reforms.  The  king 
and  his  ministers  dissolved  the  Chamber  of  Deputies — the 
representatives  of  the  people — and  at  once  the  people 
elected  a  new  Chamber. 

Thereupon  King  Charles  and  his  ministers  suspended 
the  liberty  of  the  press,  and  dissolved  the  new  Chamber  ; 
thus,  as  Mr.  Mackenzie  declares,  "  putting  their  hands  to 
awful  dt)cuments  which  sealed  the  ruin  of  a  line  of  sixty 
kings." 

The  people  were  roused  to  fury  ;  all  Paris  was  in  revolt, 
while  all  France  cried  out  in  indignation.  The  throne  of 
France  was  threatened  ;  a  new  French  Revolution  seemed 
imminent ;  blood  flowed  in  the  streets  of  Paris ;  the  old 
patriot  Lafayette  was  summoned  from  his  farm  at  La- 
grange to  take  command  of  the  National  Guard  —  the 
Forces  of  P"" ranee,  as  it  was  called  ;  and  when  the  old  king, 


136      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

fearing  for  his  crown  and  even  for  his  head,  offered  to  give 
in,  Lafayette  returned  the  answer  :  "  It  is  too  late.  We 
have  revoked  the  ordinances  ourselves.  Charles  X.  has 
ceased  to  reign." 

So  the  last  Bourbon  king  of  France  was  driven  into 
exile.  The  people  had  won  without  the  blood  of  another 
Terror ;  for  they  had  learned,  by  harsh  experience,  both 
wisdom  and  restraint. 

They  would  have  placed  Lafayette  on  the  empty  throne, 
but  the  old  hero  had  no  wish  for  such  preferment.  In- 
stead, by  a  dramatic  touch,  he  presented  to  the  swarming 
people  before  the  City  Hall  of  Paris,  the  republican  prince, 
Louis  Philippe,  Duke  of  Orleans. 

"  Hurrah  for  the  Constitution  !  Long  live  the  Duke  of 
Orleans  !  "  shouted  the  people  ;  and  the  Chamber  of  Depu- 
ties who,  with  Lafayette,  had  already  chosen  the  duke  as 
their  candidate  for  the  vacant  throne,  strengthened  by  this 
voice  of  the  people,  proclaimed  Louis  Philippe  "  King  of  the 
French."  Lafayette,  "who  for  fifty  years  had  conspired 
to  overturn  thrones,"  thus  placed  upon  the  throne  the 
"citizen-king,"  in  whose  hands  he  believed  the  liberties  of 
the  people  were  safe ;  and  France,  while  not  the  republic 
men  desired,  became  at  last  a  constitutional  monarchy,  with 
not  a  Bourbon,  but  an  Orleans  king ;  at  least,  it  was  a  long 
step  in  advance. 

"  It  is  a  plank  to  cross  over  the  gutter,"  said  Beranger, 
the  people's  poet.     "  It  is  a  preparation  for  the  republic." 

Emboldened  by  the  success  of  the  "  Revolution  of  July  " 
in  France,  other  European  states  sought  the  same  redress 
of  grievances.  Belgium  rose  in  revolt  against  its  enforced 
union  with  Holland ;  Poland  broke  out  against  Russia,  and 


HOW    THE    WORLD    HAD   A    NEW    SHAKING   UP.      1 37 

set  up  a  provisional  government ;  Saxony  and  Hessc-Cassel 
rose  in  revolt,  and  demanded  a  new  constitution  ;  Brunswick 
expelled  its  ruler,  the  duke ;  Frankfort  broke  away  from 
control ;  the  Swiss  cantons  demanded  a  more  democratic 
"accommodation  ;"  Berlin  and  Hamburg  caught  the  fever, 
and  threatened  revolution ;  Northern  Italy  broke  into  re- 
volt ;  Spain  attempted  civil  war ;  Great  Britain  was  swept 
with  riots  because  the  House  of  Lords  defeated  a  new 
"reform-bill,"  and  "the  people,"  throughout  Europe,  made 
themselves  especially  obnoxious  to  those  who  claimed  to  be 
their  masters. 

The  kings  of  the  Holy  Alliance  met  in  conference  ;  the 
"risings"  of  the  people  were  firmly  put  down.  But  the 
spirit  of  democracy  could  only  be  temporarily  smothered ; 
and  even  though  Russia  did  suppress  the  Polish  insurrec- 
tion, and  reduce  that  sorely-beset  state  to  a  mere  province 
of  the  empire,  the  effect  of  this  new  popular  protest  was  to 
grant  additional  rights  in  most  cases,  and  to  convince  the 
kings  of  the  earth  that  they  really  did  not  own  it.  The 
"Revolution  of  July  "  put  an  end  to  the  unholy  "Holy 
Alliance,"  and  Europe  made  another  step  towards  consti- 
tutional liberty. 

In  1830  the  "Powers"  of  Europe  acknowledged  the  in- 
dependence of  Belgium.  In  1831  France  abolished  the 
hereditary  peerage  ;  in  1832  the  parliament  of  Great  Brit- 
ain passed  the  Reform  Bill,  removing  inequalities  in  repre- 
sentation, giving  a  voice  to  towns  and  districts  previously 
without  representation,  enfranchising  vassal  tenants,  and 
announcing  the  rights  of  freemen  ;  that  same  year  seven 
cantons  of  Switzerland  guaranteed  the  new  free  constitu- 
tion, and  the  next  year  (1833)  saw  the  assembling  of  the 


1 38      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

First  Reform  Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  while  in  1834 
came  the  first  parliamentary  grant  for  the  education  of  the 
people.  In  1833  Guizot,  the  great  French  statesman, 
founded,  also,  a  popular  education  system,  and  Prussia 
organized  a  "  commercial  league  "  in  which  every  German 
state,  large  or  small,  had  vote  and  voice,  and  the  present 
business  prosperity  of  the  German  people  was  begun. 
Thus  Europe  felt  the  touch  of  progress,  and  by  1835 
was  seeing  the  real  benefits  of  a  broader  liberty.  Only 
Russia,  steeped  in  despotism,  permitted  neither  educational, 
intellectual,  religious,  nor  political  reform. 

Independence  in  thought  and  life  and  action  is  the  very 
breath  of  progress.  Freedom  of  effort  stimulates  the  in- 
ventive and  creative  faculties,  and  a  unity  of  interests 
means  an  advance  in  humanity. 

So  the  years  between  1830  and  1835  saw  many  improve- 
ments in  the  world  of  thought,  endeavor,  and  achievement. 
Steam  was  entering  more  largely  into  the  fields  of  labor 
and  communication.  Even  before  1830  the  demands  of 
transportation  in  the  growing  states  of  the  American  Union 
interested  wide-awake  investors  in  the  possible  value  of  the 
locomotive  engine,  invented  in  England,  and  improved  to  a 
practical  value  by  Stephenson.  After  Stephenson's  suc- 
cess with  the  "  Rocket  "  in  1829,  three  English  locomotives 
were  brought  over  to  America,  and  the  first  trial  was  made 
at  Honesdale  in  Pennsylvania.  In  1826  a  horse-railroad 
drew  loaded  cars  to  and  from  the  granite  quarries  at 
Ouincy  in  Massachusetts;  in  1828  the  South  Carolina 
railroad  was  begun;  and  on  the  fourth  of  July,  1828, 
Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  drove  the  first  spike  of  the  Baltimore  and 


now    THE   WORLD   HAD   A    NEW    SHAKING    UP-     1 39 

Ohio  Railroad,  destined  to  be  one  of  the  great  "iron 
trails  "  of  the  continent.  It  was  for  use  on  this  road  that 
Stephenson's  locomotive  engines  were  imported  ;  and,  by 
1832,  the  road  was  seventy-three  miles  long,  and  running 
at  the  rate  of  fifteen  miles  an  hour. 

Although  the  opening  of  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester 
Railway  in  England,  in  1829,  led  to  this  wonderful  revolu- 
tion in  the  modes  of  travelling,  both  in  England  and 
America  the  first  steps  were  but  slowly  made.  In  1835 
there  was,  according  to  Dr.  Wallace,  "  not  a  mile  of  rail- 
road in  England,  except  the  short  Stockton  and  Darlington, 
and  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester  lines  ;  none  between 
London  and  the  great  northern  and  western  cities  was 
even  seriously  contemplated."  In  that  same  year  the  forty 
miles  of  American  railroad  finished  in  1830  had  grown  to 
only  a  thousand  miles.  In  other  lands  the  first  growth  was 
even  slower.  France,  in  1833,  was  considering  a  general 
plan  of  railway  development,  though  but  a  few  miles  were 
in  operation  ;  active  work  on  Belgian  railroads  was  begun 
the  same  year,  and  the  first  German  line  was  opened  in 
1835.  But  Austria  positively  discouraged  such  new  inno- 
vations as  steam  railways,  and  the  progress-hating  czar  of 
Russia  actually  forbade  them.  Spain  and  Holland,  Portu- 
gal, Italy,  and  Turkey  took  little  or  no  interest  in  this  new 
method  of  travelling  ;  not  for  years  were  the  iron  rails  laid 
upon  the  soil  of  these  countries  or  in  the  lands  of  South 
America  and  the  European  colonies  in  Asia  and  Africa.  It 
was  Anglo-Saxon  enterprise  that  set  on  foot  and  developed 
this  new  method  of  speed  and  comfort  in  travelling  and 
transportation  ;  and  even  in  England  and  America  its 
growth  was  slow  until  it  had  actually  proved  its  efficiency. 


I40     THE   STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

Fast  upon  the  heels  of  the  railroad  and  the  steamboat — 
the  time-savers  for  man  —  came  a  demand  for  labor-savers  ; 
and  inventors  in  all  lands  had  already  drawn  on  their 
"  thinking-caps."  The  ideas  that  underlie  many  of  our 
modem  inventions,  were  known  and  had  even  been  crudely 
worked  out  in  the  eighteenth  century  ;  but  the  nineteenth 
undertook  their  practical  development ;  and,  in  this  devel- 
opment, the  growing  acquaintance  with  the  power  and 
possibilities  of  steam  played  a  leading  part. 

As  the  properties  and  value  of  coal  as  a  heat -giver  be- 
came more  widely  recognized,  the  union  of  heat  and  steam 
was  put  to  practical  uses ;  and  the  steam-engine,  an  inven- 
tion of  the  second  century  before  Christ,  became,  in  the 
nineteenth  century  after  Christ,  a  real  and  necessary  helper 
to  man.  From  James  Watt's  invention  of  the  steam-engine, 
in  1763,  grew  all  its  modern  methods  and  mechanisms, 
and  by  1835  its  value  was  patent  to  all.  The  steam-engine 
began  to  take  the  place  of  the  water-wheel  and  the  wind- 
mill;  the  steam-plough  was  invented  in  1832;  improved 
methods  in  the  manufacture  of  goods  from  cotton,  wool, 
and  leather  came  into  use ;  and  the  patent-offices  of  civilized 
nations  were  kept  busy  in  recording  and  protecting  the 
inventions  of  active  brains  and  hands. 

In  America,  especially,  did  inventive  ingenuity  find  a 
wide  and  fruitful  field.  The  iron  industry,  already  growing 
to  large  proportions,  the  introduction  of  anthracite  coal  for 
the  production  and  smelting  of  iron,  the  uses  of  coal,  also, 
for  heating  dwellings  and  for  the  preparation  of  illumi- 
nating-gas, led  to  the  necessity  for  new  contrivances  in 
connection  with,  or  growing  out  of,  these  great  industries ; 
and  1830  was  really  our  "pivotal  "  year  in  brain-production. 


now   THE    WORLD    HAD   A    NEW    SHAKING   UP.     I4I 

Invention  is  the  sworn  foe  to  exclusiveness,  and  ma- 
chinery is  the  leveller  of  caste.  In  a  republic  like  the 
United  States,  this  development  of  new  economic  forces 
led  to  the  growth  of  democratic  ideas.  The  year  1830,  also, 
marks  the  downfall  of  the  old  colonial  period  of  isolation  ; 
for,  when  people  were  brought  together  through  the  new 
methods  of  communication  and  manufacture,  they  were  led 
to  demand  more  and  better  things,  to  become  more  inter- 
ested in  one  another,  and,  by  the  new  element  of  competi- 
tion in  trade  and  production,  to  become  sharper  rivals  but, 
at  the  same  time,  closer  associates,  standing  on  a  broader 
basis  of  equality,  endeavor,  and  life. 

In  the  year  1832  there  sailed  on  the  ocean  packet  Sully ^ 
from  Havre  to  New  York,  an  American  portrait-painter, 
artist,  and  professor  of  the  art  of  design  in  the  University 
of  New  York  —  Samuel  Finley  Breese  Morse.  He  was  a 
successful  artist,  and  was  the  president  of  the  National 
Academy  of  Design  ;  but,  for  years,  something  more  than 
subjects  for  pictures  and  portraits  had  been  buzzing  in  his 
busy  brain.  He  was  greatly  interested  in  the  possibilities 
of  electricity  —  that  wonderful  power  in  nature,  whose  force 
had  been  largely  introduced  to  the  scientific  world  by 
Morse's  fellow-countryman,  Benjamin  Franklin  —  like 
Morse,  a  Boston  boy.  Professor  Morse  believed  in  the 
possibility  of  communication  by  use  of  the  electric  current ; 
and  in  his  cabin  on  the  Sully  he  was  working  out  a  process 
that  was  in  his  head,  and  which  he  believed  could  be  made 
practical. 

In  mid-ocean,  one  October  day  in  1832,  he  completed 
his  calculations,  and  made  drawings  of  an  instrument  with 
which,  so  he  declared  to  his  friends  on  board  the  Sully,  he 


142      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

could  compel  a  current  of  electricity  to  pass  instantaneously 
along  a  far-reaching  wire,  stretched  to  any  distance,  and  to 
record  the  signs  the  despatcher  wished  to  convey. 

Sceptical  people  said  it  was  impossible ;  superstitious 
people  called  it  witchcraft ;  and  practical  people  thought  it 
only  another  kind  of  electrical  toy.  For  electricity  was 
not  a  new  discovery ;  it  had  been  experimented  with  from 
the  far-off  days  of  Thales  of  Miletus,  six  hundred  years 
before  Christ  ;  but,  like  its  sister  power  of  steam,  it  had 
waited  all  these  ages  for  the  nineteenth  century  after 
Christ,  for  practical  and  triumphant  development.  As  to 
the  electric  telegraph,  —  an  instrument  to  write  at  a  dis- 
tance,—  other  men  before  Morse  had  also  conceived  the 
idea ;  but  no  one  had  really  brought  it  to  a  practical  result 
until  Professor  Morse  made  his  drawings  and  calculations 
on  board  the  packet-ship  Sully,  although  at  the  same  time 
the  Alsatian  inventor,  Steinhal,  was  also  studying  out,  and 
had  nearly  perfected,  a  working  model  of  a  recording  tele- 
graph. Professor  Morse,  the  American,  was,  however, 
first  in  the  field  ;  and  to  him  is  given  the  credit  of  being 
the  father  of  modern  telegraphy. 

"  If  the  presence  of  electricity  can  be  made  visible  in 
any  part  of  the  circuit,"  he  said  to  his  fellow  passengers 
in  the  cabin  of  the  Sully,  "  I  see  no  reason  why  intelli- 
gence may  not  be  transmitted  by  electricity." 

Reaching  New  York,  he  set  about  making  his  apparatus  ; 
in  1835  ^^  discovered  a  way  to  strengthen  or  "re-enforce" 
the  electric  current,  and  in  1836  he  had  completed  a 
working  apparatus.  After  that,  through  years  of  disap- 
pointment, poverty,  and  persistence,  he  kept  on  with  his 
invention,  which  finally  brought  him  recognition,  success. 


HOW   THE    WORLD    HAD   A    NEW    SHAKING   UP.     I43 

and  fame  ;  but  it  was  in  this  period  —  the  years  between 
1830  and  1835  — that  his  idea  attained  faith  and  form  in 
his  mind,  and  to  that  period,  therefore  can  be  assigned  the 
practical  discovery  and  invention  of  the  wonderful  and 
world-develop  ing  electric  telegraph. 

Invention  is,  perhaps,  an  even  greater  civilizer  than 
philanthropy  ;  but  philanthropy,  as  they  say  in  a  race,  is  a 
"quick  second."  And  philanthropy,  in  the  days  that  gave 
birth  to  the  telegraph,  was  also  doing  practical  work  in  the 
world,  which  because  of  it,  as  because,  too,  of  inv^en- 
tion,  was  becoming  more  self-reliant,  self-helpful,  and 
democratic. 

The  success  of  the  Reform  Bill  in  England,  which  practi- 
cally enfranchised  the  people  of  England,  was  followed  in 
1833  by  the  Act  of  Parliament  abolishing  slavery  in  all  the 
British  colonies  on  and  after  the  first  day  of  August,  1834. 

It  was  a  great  step  forward.  But  the  colonies  did  not, 
as  a  rule,  thank  the  mother  country  for  the  gift  of  free- 
dom to  man.  The  Boers  of  the  Cape  Colony  in  Africa, 
the  planters  of  the  West  Indies,  and  the  bushrangers  and 
farmers  of  Australia  strongly  objected  to  the  new  order  of 
things,  even  though  England  granted  to  the  slave-owners 
a  hundred  millions  of  dollars  as  indemnity  for  their  loss. 
But  the  moral  effect  on  the  world  was  incalculable. 
Cowper's  lines  fell  again  and  with  new  emphasis  on  English 
ears : 

"  Slaves  cannot  breathe  in  England ;  if  their  lungs 
Receive  our  air,  that   moment  they  are  free; 
They  touch  our  country  and  their  shackles  fall." 

And  Whittier,  destined  to  be  America's  poet  of  freedom, 

demanded,  in  indignant  inquiry,  of  his  own  countr}Tnan  : 


144      THE   STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

"  Shall  every  flap  of  England's  flag 

Proclaim  that  all  around  are  free 
From  'farthest  Ind'  to  each  blue  crag 

That  beetles  o'er  the  western  sea  ? 
And  shall  we  scoff  at  Europe's  kings 

When  Freedom's  fire  is  dim  with  us 
And  round  our  country's  altar  clings 

The  dawning  shade  of  Slavery's  curse?" 

But  the  day  was  not  yet  ripe  in  America  for  the  great 
stride  England  had  taken.  The  United  States  had  abol- 
ished the  slave-trade  —  or  rather  the  importation  of  slaves 
—  in  1 808  ;  but  slavery  was  esteemed  too  great  a  necessity 
in  the  tobacco  and  cotton-growing  States  of  the  South  for 
people  to  agree  to  the  suggestion  of  Washington  and 
follow  the  example  of  Jefferson  —  both  slaveholders  who 
freed  their  own  slaves.  Indeed,  by  1835,  the  maintenance 
of  slavery  was  the  vital  question  in  the  South  ;  and  the 
cotton-gin  of  Eli  Whitney  was  largely  responsible  for  it. 

Gradually  the  Northern  States  had  all  abolished  the 
evil ;  the  new  States  of  the  Northwest  made  freedom  their 
corner-stone  ;  and  the  existence  of  slavery  beneath  the  flag 
of  the  United  States  —  the  "  banner  of  the  free  "  —  slowly 
developed  into  a  matter  of  conviction,  North  and  South  — 
deep-seated  and  strong  in  its  favor  in  the  South  ;  indifferent 
at  first,  but  gradually  growing  into  pronounced  opposition, 
in  the  North. 

Stronger  than  partisanship  and  philanthropy  in  the 
United  States,  however,  in  those  opening  years  of  the 
slavery  dispute,  was  the  desire  for  union,  prosperity,  and 
peace.  Men  grow  up  to  great  ideas  gradually.  Indepen- 
dence, which  had  been  secured  at  great  cost  by  the  United 
States  of  America,  was  esteemed  too  great  a  boon  to  be 


HOW   THE    WORLD    HAD    A    NEW    SHAKING    UP.     I45 

shared  with  men  of  servile  race  and  African  blood.  To 
the  makers  of  the  Republic  a  man  was  a  white  man  ;  it 
took  years  of  slowly  developing  thought,  and  the  strain  and 
fret  of  discussion,  debate,  and  quarrel,  before  the  larger 
truth  sank  into  the  American  mind,  that,  as  Burns  put  it, 
"A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that." 

So,  as  slavery  strengthened,  and  opposition  displayed 
itself,  the  statesmen  of  America  held  themselves  to  the 
task  of  smoothing  over  sectional  differences  by  "  compro- 
mising "  matters.  In  1820  it  had  been  agreed  that  sla- 
very should  be  prohibited  in  the  United  States  west  of  the 
Mississippi  River,  and  north  of  the  southern  border  of  Mis- 
souri ;  this  was  called  the  Missouri  Compromise.  This 
had  been  brought  about  by  one  of  the  foremost  Americans 
of  the  time  —  Henry  Clay  of  Kentucky  ;  and  both  he  and 
Daniel  Webster  of  Massachusetts  stand  out  as  the  cham- 
pions of  union  and  peace,  at  a  time  when  both  peace  and 
union  were  necessary  to  the  consistent  development  of  the 
growing  republic.  There  is  a  time  for  all  things  in  the 
lives  of  men  and  nations,  and  the  day  for  universal  freedom 
had  not  yet  arrived  in  America.  That  truth  is  born  of 
discussion.  Discussion,  though  slow  in  results,  stirs  the 
minds  of  men.  A  mind  thus  stirred  to  think  is  open  to 
many  new  ideas;  and  these  ideas,  promulgated  often  by 
unbalanced  and  impractical  persons,  not  unfrequently  take 
foolish,  fanatical,  or  furious  courses.  Out  of  these,  or  in 
spite  of  these,  real  and  practical  progress  finally  comes; 
but  the  process  is  slow,  exasperating,  and  often  unsettling. 
In  the  years  between  1830  and  1835  many  of  these  re- 
forms took  shape,  and  often  very  unattractive  shapes ; 
for  that  period  was  the  birthday  of  isms  in  America  more 


146     THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

than  in  the  rest  of  the  world,  because  only  in  America  was 
thought  really  democratic  and  free.  Fourierism,  Millerism, 
Mormonism,  Mesmerism,  Abolitionism,  and  all  the  antis 
and  isms  from  anti-masonry  and  the  Perfectionists  to 
Abolitionism  and  Teetotalism,  had  their  beginnings  in 
America  around  1835  ;  and  like  the  virgins  in  the  Bible 
parable,  some  of  them  were  wise  and  some  were  foolish. 
But  they  were  all  efforts  toward  liberty. 


TYPES    OF    THE      j  I'.alzac  Morale  Mann 

;  HiMBoLDT  Jackson 

AGE    OF    JACKSON    )  Heine  Kat.h-k   Matthpv 


/ 


V 


CHAPTER  IX. 

WHAT    "OLD    hickory"    HELPED    TO    ACCOMPLISH. 
{From  1835  to  1840.) 

ERY  many  of  these  "fads"  of  1835  of  which  men- 
tion has  been  made,  though  of  American  growth, 
were  of  "European  extraction,"  hke  so  many  American 
citizens.  Europe  was  fighting  its  own  battle  for  human 
rights,  and  out  of  this  struggle  for  freedom  queer  growths 
sprang.  Frov/ned  upon  or  forbidden  in  Europe,  they 
crossed  the  sea  to  America,  and  there  found  friends  and 
foes,  but  flourished  largely  unrestrained. 

The  curse  of  drink  was  threatening  the  health  and 
morals  of  civilization.  From  the  beginning  of  the  century 
good  men  in  Europe  and  America  had  studied  how  to  stay 
the  evil  of  intemperance.  Example  and  declaration  were 
esteemed  the  only  real  way;  and  in  September,  1832, 
Joseph  Livesey,  of  Preston,  in  England,  with  six  compan- 
ions, signed  a  pledge,  binding  themselves  to  totally  ab- 
stain from  the  use  of  alcohol  in  every  form.  It  was  the 
first  Total  Abstinence  Society.  Temperance  organizations 
there  had  been  before, — the  American  Temperance  So- 
ciety of  1826,  and  its  English  namesake  of  1830  ;  but  not 
until  Livesey's  pledge-taking  was  there  a  move  to  cure  the 
drink  habit  by  absolute  abstinence.  Every  "  teetotaler  " 
became  a  missionary  for  his  cause,  and  both  in  England 
and  America  the  crusade  against  intemperance  grew. 

M7 


I4S      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY, 

Parliament  voted  an  "inquiry"  into  the  prevalence  of 
drunkenness  in  1835.  Father  Mathew,  an  Irish  priest, 
signed  the  pledge  in  1836,  and  at  once  began  so  vigorous 
a  crusade  that  "nearly  half  of  Ireland,"  thousands  in  Eng- 
land, and  a  great  following  in  America,  convinced  by  his 
eloquence,  enrolled  themselves  under  his  banner  of  reform. 

The  temperance  "crusade"  did  not  cross  the  channel  to 
the  Continent.  The  " strenuousness  of  exertion"  which 
displayed  itself  in  the  reforms  of  Great  Britain  and  Amer- 
ica was  of  slower  growth  in  other  than  English-speaking 
nations  ;  and  as  drunkenness  was  less  prevalent  on  the  Con- 
tinent, so  reform  seemed  less  necessary.  "Temperance 
legislation  "  did  not  make  its  appearance  in  European  law- 
making bodies  for  several  years  to  come. 

But  1835,  which  marked  the  birth  of  revision  in  methods, 
which  swung  the  pendulum  of  reform  from  ism  to  ism, 
until  it  settled  to  a  practical  plumb,  and  which  saw  the 
development  of  democratic  ideas  whenever  men  began  to 
think  without  the  fear  of  constraint  or  force,  saw  also  this 
broadening  of  thought  along  still  nobler  lines  of  effort,  — 
lines  which  led,  in  our  time,  straight  to  that  grandeur  of 
achievement  which  has  made  these  hundred  years  to  be 
well  styled  "the  Wonderful  Century." 

In  all  departments  of  productive  science  the  minds  of 
men  were  sharply  active  in  the  formative  thirties.  Priest- 
ley and  Lavoisier,  Scheele  and  Herschel,  Laplace  and 
Cuvier,  pioneers  in  science  when  the  century  began,  had 
all  passed  away.  New  men,  working  on  the  foundations 
these  forerunners  of  the  new  sciences  had  laid,  were 
actively  progressing,  in  1835,  along  the  new  lines  of  effort 
thus  prepared  for  them. 


WHAT   "OLD    HICKORY"   HELPED   TO    ACCOMPLISH.    149 

In   looking  up  and  looking  down  —  in  astronomy  and 
geology  —  Bessel  the  German,  and  Lyell  the  Englishman, 
were  studying  and  discovering  new  methods.      In  the  ways 
of    looking    out    on    things — in  botany  and    ornithology, 
zoology  and  the  mechanical  sciences,  Schleiden  the  German, 
and    Hooker    the    English    botanists.    Saint    Hilaire    the 
French  ornithologist  and  zoologist,  the  Stephensons,  father 
and  son,  English  giants  of  the  steam-engine,  and  Faraday, 
the  foremost   investigator  of    his  day,   were  leading  the 
advance  in    developments,  while    in    the  ways  of  looking 
in  —  physiology  and  psychology  —  Schwann  the  German 
physiologist,   Baer  the  Russian  naturalist,   were  active  in 
research  ;  and  James  Mill  the  English  philosopher,  dying 
in    1836,   bequeathed   to   his   illustrious  son,  John   Stuart 
Mill,  those  principles  in  mind-studies  that  have  made  both 
son  and  father  great.     Looking  around  —  the  science  of  geo- 
graphy—  found  its  best  examplers  at  that  time  in  Bowditch 
the  American,    Sir  John    Barrow,   founder  of    the   Royal 
Geograpical  Society,  and  the  German  Humboldt,  greatest 
of  modern  geographers.      In  history,  ethnology,  and  philol- 
ogy —  the  sciences  that  look   back  —  Guizot  the   French- 
man, Bopp  the  German,  Bancroft  the  American,  and  Hal- 
lam  the  Englishman,  were  leading  the  advance  of  a  study 
as  old  as  Herodotus  and  Tacitus,  but  as  new  as  Macaulay, 
and    Max    Muller,  and  Green,   their   successors  of  a  still 
later  day.     In  religion,  philosophy,  and  ethics  —  the  hope-, 
ful  sciences,  the  sciences  of  faith  and   reason,  and  of  look- 
ing  forward  —  the   year    1835    was    prolific   of   thinkers, 
reasoners,    and    teachers,    who,    in   the   mid-years   of   the 
century,  were  to    be    the    prophets    and    leaders    of   new 
schools  of  theology  and  thought.     For,  in    1835,  Spencer 


150     THE   STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

and  Darwin,  Emerson  and  Martineau,  were,  in  youthful 
enthusiasm,  pushing  forward  the  work  begun  by  Fichte 
and  Comte,  and  other  leaders  of  thought.  In  1835,  too, 
Thomas  Carlyle  had  published  his  "Sartor  Resatus;"  he 
was  on  the  eve  of  making  public  his  story  of  the  French 
Revolution  ;  and  the  glory  of  the  Victorian  Era  was 
already  in  the  flush   of  dawning. 

The  woman  whose  womanliness  dominated  Europe  for 
two-thirds  of  a  century,  and  gave  her  name  to  one  of  the 
world's  brightest  stages  of  intellectual  advance,  ascended 
the  throne  of  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  as  Queen  Victoria  in  1837,  In  that  year  the 
Victorian  Era  began. 

But  not  alone  in  the  literature  and  effort  of  England  was 
the  opening  of  that  era  notable.  In  lands  that,  because  of 
political  and  racial  differences,  would  have  scorned  the  use 
of  the  name  of  Victoria,  queen  of  England,  the  year  of 
her  accession  marked  important  advances  in  literature,  art, 
and  science,  in  attempting  and  achieving,  in  designing  and 
doing.  But  in  England  that  year  was  especially  promi- 
nent. In  that  year  Carlyle's  "  French  Revolution  "  and 
the  "  Pickwick  Papers  "  of  Charles  Dickens,  were  pub- 
lished ;  Tennyson  wrote  "  Locksley  Hall  "  and  "  Morte 
d' Arthur."  In  all  of  these  lived  that  spirit  of  democracy 
that  was  already,  because  of  the  efforts  of  the  year  1830, 
awakening  the  world  of  Europe  to  broader  endeavor.  In 
1838  this  spirit  of  progress  displayed  itself  in  England  in 
the  demands  made  by  an  active  party  of  political  reformers, 
who,  because  they  asked  for  the  "people's  charter,"  were 
called  Chartists.  Universal  suffrage,  annual  parliaments, 
equal  representation,  vote  by  ballot,  and   an  abolition  of 


WHAT   "OLD    HICKORY"    HELPED   TO   ACCOMPLISH.    151 

property  qualifications  for  members  of  parliament,  were  the 
leading  principles  of  this  new  party,  all  of  which  were 
acknowledged  as  the  inherent  and  proclaimed  rights  of  the 
democracy  that  ruled  America.  This  English  demand 
came  because  of  the  people's  advance  ;  it  came  because  of 
the  Reform  Bill  of  1832  ;  and  had  it  but  sought  to  establish 
itself  as  law  by  peaceable  methods,  it  might  have  succeeded 
long  before  it  did  ;  for,  to-day,  in  Great  Britain  all  or  very 
nearly  all  the  things  the  Chartists  demanded  are  embodied 
in  English  law.  But,  as  in  all  reforms,  fanatics  and  dis- 
turbers, agitators  and  rioters,  in  the  opening  years  of 
Chartism,  hindered  more  than  helped  the  new  scheme  of 
reform  ;  and  antagonisms  grew  into  open  ruptures,  which 
for  a  time,  even  as  with  the  abolitionists  of  America, 
proved  a  real  detriment,  even  though  they  became  at  last 
an  advantage  to  the  great  cause  in  whose  behalf  these 
temporary  disturbances  were  invoked. 

Meantime,  across  the  water,  the  leader  of  the  new  forces 
of  democracy  —  that  "typical  man  of  the  people,"  Andrew 
Jackson — was  making  his  mark  upon  the  world.  Impul- 
sive, hot-headed,  obstinate,  this  man  of  the  people  was, 
nevertheless  a  student  of  the  people,  and  fathomed  alike 
their  desires  and  their  needs.  Above  all,  an  ardent  lover 
of  the  Union,  he  believed  absolutely  in  the  sovereignty  of 
the  people,  and  his  eight  years'  service  as  president  of  the 
United  States  has  been  termed  a  "  period  of  constitutional 
despotism."  But  Andrew  Jackson  read  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  to  suit  his  own  judgments;  and 
although  the  Constitution  really  contained  checks  upon  the 
will  of  the  people,  he  made  even  those  checks  ser\-e  his  own 
purpose  as  a  leader  of  the  people.     He  thus  opened  the 


152      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

way  to  a  new  speech  in  American  history,  and,  in  a  broader 
sense,  the  history  of  the  civiHzed  world,  by  proclaiming  a 
democracy  that  was  dangerously  near  despotism,  but  which 
in  time  so  survived  all  shocks  and  crises  as  to  lead  the 
nation, —  and,  in  a  still  wider  sense,  the  whole  world, — out 
of  old-time  notions  into  nationalism,  industrial  freedom,  and 
a  new  and  more  beneficial  economic  development. 

Andrew  Jackson's  methods  were  often  open  to  question ; 
they  were  indeed  often  detestable ;  but  his  theories  were 
correct,  and  the  results  contributed  beyond  even  what 
"  Old  Hickory"  himself,  as  he  was  called,  could  imagine,  to 
the  growth  of  democratic  ideas  at  home  and  abroad. 

In  his  own  land,  by  his  prompt  and  vigorous  measures, 
Andrew  Jackson  worked  his  will  —  which  he  always  pro- 
tested was  the  will  of  the  people  —  to  the  glory  and  great- 
ness of  the  United  States  of  America.  With  a  stern  and 
heav^  hand  he  crushed  down  state  sovereignty,  and  declared 
the  sovereignty  of  the  nation  ;  he  demolished  the  institution 
known  as  the  United  States  Bank,  which  he  decided  to  be 
an  "Un-American  Monopoly"  and  a  menace  to  the  Re- 
public ;  he  brought  England  to  terms  by  opening  its  West 
India  ports  to  the  commerce  of  the  United  States ;  he 
made  France  pay  a  just  but  long-combated  indebtedness, 
settled  disputes  of  old-standing  with  Spain  and  Denmark, 
compelled  Austria  to  friendly  relations,  and  forced  Europe 
to  recognize  and  admit  the  strength  and  importance  of  the 
United  States  as  a  nation.  The  age  of  Andrew  Jackson, 
from  1830  to  1840,  was  indeed  the  era  of  Democracy;  and 
its  effects  were  far-reaching,  touching  in  results  the  prog- 
ress of  the  world. 

The  influence  of  American  democracy,  of  which  Jackson 


WHAT   "OLD    HICKORY"    HKLPED   TO    ACCOMPLISH.    I  53 

was  the  leader,  were  felt,  indeed,  though  the  world  may  not 
admit  it,  in  every  phase  of  human  life.     Chartism  and  the 
Anti-Corn-Law  in  England  sprang  into  existence  because  of 
it ;  the  Constitutional  liberty  of  France,  under  the  citizen- 
king  Louis  Philippe,  felt  its  persuasions,  and  brought  about 
a  changed  national  feeling  ;  the  people  of  Germany  acknowl- 
edged its  force,  and  grew  restless  under  the  foolish  political 
system  of  petty  and   ever  jealous   states  without  real  or 
helpful  unity ;  Austria,  most   conservative  and  reactionary 
of    monarchies,  was   filled  with   constantly  growing  secret 
societies,  whose  one  demand  was  for  self-government  and 
free  institutions ;   Italy,  bound  down  by  the  tyranny  of  the 
"Holy  Alliance,"  grew  restive  beneath  what  the  Alliance 
called  its  "incontestable  rights"  of  repression,  and  secretly 
began  a  combination  of  the  people  for  unity  and  representa- 
tive government ;  even  the  progressive  party  of  unprogres- 
sive  Spain  forced  from  its  unwilling  ruler  a  constitution  and 
an  elective  chamber  (the  Cortes,  or  "Courts"),  while  Den- 
mark, Sweden,  and  Norway  displayed  more  than  ever  before 
their  yearnings  for  distinctive  and  progressive  nationality. 
Only  in  Russia,  the  home   of   dcpotism,  were  the  peo- 
ple's desires  disregarded,  liberaUsm  sternly  repressed,  the 
concessions   of   the  Emperor's    predecessor    revoked,   Po- 
land and  the   Palatinates  absorbed,  and  what  are  known 
as  reactionary  or  "back-sliding"  tendencies  displayed.     But 
Siberia  had  to  be  taken  as  a  political  prison  because  of  the 
liberty-loving  restlessness  of  many  of   Russia's  sons ;  and 
literature,  the  handmaid  of  freedom,  progressed   in  spite 
of  imperial  edict,  censorship,  and  persecution.     The  demo- 
cratic principles  of  Andrew  Jackson  found  lodgment  every- 
where in  Christian  soil,  even  though  the  name  of  Andrew 


154     THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

Jackson  was  unknown  to  the  patriots  of  Europe,  and  to  the 
people  feeling  their  way  slowly  towards  recognition. 

Those  rulers  who  seek  to  confront  a  political  problem, 
usually  endeavor  to  dodge  it  by  diverting  the  attention  of 
the  people  to  other  interests.  The  growing  power  of  a 
people  has  often  displayed  itself  in  national  or  colonial  ex- 
pansion, as  business  interests  or  self -strength  have  dictated ; 
and  rulers  who  see  in  conquest  a  road  out  of  domestic  agita- 
tion have  eagerly  seconded  this  demand,  and  attempted  the 
enlargement  of  the  national  limits.  It  was  this  that  raised 
and  ruined  Napoleon.  It  was  this  which,  after  his  death, 
and  when  the  nation  had  again  righted  itself  from  the  dis- 
turbances of  1830,  set  France  out  on  its  new  career  of 
conquest  by  crossing  the  Mediterranean  into  Africa  ;  and, 
because  of  the  growing  power  of  the  people,  England 
poured  her  troops  into  India  and  Southeastern  Asia,  Russia 
pushed  her  forces  still  farther  into  western  Asia  and  across 
the  Balkans,  and  even  republican  America,  with  eyes  only 
for  the  fertile  fields  of  the  West,  elbowed  the  original  red 
Americans  still  farther  from  their  own  neighborhood,  and 
nearer  to  the  Rockies  and  the  distant  shores  of  the  Pacific. 

But  Christianity  does  not  have  a  monopoly  of  all  the 
virtues  ;  and  patriotism  lives  in  Mussulman  and  Afghan,  in 
Indian  and  Asiatic,  even  as  it  does  in  Englishman,  German, 
and  white  American. 

In  Algiers,  which  France  sought  to  wrest  from  native 
control,  Abd-El-Kader  led  his  countrymen  in  an  heroic  and 
long-continued  resistance  ;  Dost  Mohammed,  the  Afghan, 
resenting  Enghsh  "expansion,"  stood  boldly  out  against 
the  British  arms,  as  many  a  Mahratta  and  East  Indian 
patriot  had  done  before  him  ;  in  Turkey,  the  power  of  Rus- 


WHAT   "OLD    HICKORY"    HELPED   TO    ACCOMPLISH.    I  55 

sia  was  defied  and  attacked  by  Ibrahim  Pacha  and  the 
"progressive"  and  determined  opponents  of  the  Porte; 
while  in  the  IlHnois  morasses,  and  amid  the  beautiful  Wis- 
consin dells,  the  last  of  the  red  Indian  patriots.  Black 
Hawk,  the  chief  of  the  Sacs,  made  a  desperate  but  un- 
availing stand  against  the  resistless  advance  of  white 
aggression. 

But  patriotism,  though  heroic  and  glorious,  is  not  always 
destined  to  succeed,  for  the  reason  that  human  progress 
demands  the  sacrifice  of  self  for  the  good  of  the  race. 
The  conquest  of  savage  or  semi-civilized  lands  by  the  forces 
of  Christian  civilization  seems  necessary  to  the  advance- 
ment and  welfare  of  the  world  ;  so  Algerian  and  Afghan, 
East  Indian  and  red  American,  though  battling  in  the  late 
thirties  for  the  defence  of  their  homelands,  were  struggling 
for  what  was  alike  impossible  and  impracticable  ;  for  the 
law  of  human  progress  is  based  upon  what  has  come  to  be 
called  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  the  triumph  of  Christianity 
over  barbarism  by  absorption,  expansion,  and  a  new  con- 
solidation. 

In  the  very  year  in  which  these  "  expansions  by  inva- 
sion "  were  going  forward,  Alfred  Tennyson,  the  young 
prophet  of  progress,  was  putting  his  theory  of  growth  into 
words  :  — 

"  Yet  I  doubt  not  through  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  by  the  process  of  the  suns." 

And  when  he  lifts  the  hero  of  that  same  noble  "  Locksley 
Hall  "  poem  out  of  a  lazy  content  into  strenuous  endeavor, 
rousing  him  from  a  do-nothing  to  a  do-something  condi- 
tion, how  grandly,  again,  the  poet  typifies  the  spirit  of  the 


156     THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

age  that  from  1830  to  1840  felt  the  influence  of  democracy 
and  the  promptings  of  progress  :  — 

"  Fool  I  again  the  dream,  the  fancy  1  but  I  know  my  words  are  wild, 
For  I  count  the  gray  barbarian  lower  than  the  Christian  child. 

I  to  herd  with  narrow  foreheads,  vacant  of  our  glorious  gains, 
Like  a  beast  with  lower  pleasures,  like  a  beast  with  lower  pains  I 

Mated  with  a  squalid  savage,  what  to  me  were  sun  or  clime  ? 
I,  the  heir  of  all  the  ages,  in  the  foremost  files  of  time. 

I,  that  held  it  better  man  should  perish  one  by  one, 

Than  that  earth  should  stand  at  gaze,  like  Joshua's  moon  in  Ajalon. 

Not  in  vain  the  distance  beacons.     Forward,  forward  let  us  range ; 
Let  the  great  world  spin  forever  down  the  ringing  groove  of  change. 

Through  the  shadow  of  the  globe  we  sweep  into  the  younger  day, 
Better  fifty  years  of  Europe  than  a  cycle  of  Cathay." 

Those  winged  and  inspiring  words  of  Alfred  Tennyson, 
in  1837,  have  stood  as  the  text  for  all  noble  endeavor,  and 
for  all  real  advancement  in  thought,  condition,  and  achieve- 
ment, through  all  the  years  down  to  the  dawn  of  the  new 
century,  which  is  to  see  those  theories  developed  into  prac- 
tical results. 

Still,  for  all  these  prophetic  utterances  of  1837,  prophecy 
was  for  the  future.  The  creative  faculty  of  man  was  at- 
tempting ;  achievement  was  to  come  later.  Although  the 
world  felt,  imperceptibly,  the  thrill  of  an  awakening  en- 
deavor, the  mass  of  the  people  had  little  if  any  knowledge 
of  this  advance  ;  and  the  poUtical  masters  of  Europe  were 
still  endeavoring  to  compass  their  ends  by  the  outgrown 
methods  of  on  old-time  diplomacy.  Russia,  with  her  me- 
diaeval court,  was  still  clinging  to  her  traditional  and  auto- 


WHAT  "OLD    HICKORY"    HELPED   TO   ACCOMPLISH.     1 57 

cratic  way  of  "running  things,"  and  was  even  hoping  to 
control  Europe  by  making  allies  of  those  whom  England 
sought  to  draw  to  her  own  side.  But  she  could  not.  In 
1837  Austria,  Russia,  and  Prussia  were  closely  watchful  of 
one  another,  uncertain  whether  they  were  to  be  friends  or 
foes,  but  certain  of  one  thing,  that  England  should  not  use 
either  of  them  for  her  own  benefiit. 

"  Within  fifty  years,"  Napoleon  had  said,  trying  his  hand 
at  prophecy  early  in  the  century,  "  Europe  will  be  either 
republican  or  Cossack."  In  1837  it  had  become  neither, 
either  by  acceptance  or  conquest  ;  but,  glancing  back  from 
the  outlook  of  a  new  century,  we  can  see  that,  even  in 
1837,  the  republican  rather  than  the  Russian  element  was 
most  successfully  at  work,  and  that,  unknowingly  but 
surely,  the  spirit  of  Andrew  Jackson  the  democrat,  rather 
than  that  of  Nicholas  the  czar,  was  the  impelling  force  of 
the  world. 

The  world  of  1837  would  have  laughed  this  idea  to 
scorn  ;  for,  to  all  appearances,  conservatism  rather  than 
progress  was  the  ruling  spirit  of  the  age.  The  czar  of 
Russia  was  the  recognized  head  of  this  old-time,  non-pro- 
gressive spirit  that  held  all  the  courts  of  Europe  tightly 
bound  with  the  red-tape  of  a  seemingly  changeless  rule  of 
ceremonial.  Stubborn,  narrow,  and  unimaginative,  Nich- 
olas of  Russia  hated  the  slightest  advance  toward  popular 
government,  and  firmly  believed  that  the  only  safety  of 
nations  was  in  the  maintenance  of  an  absolute  ruler's  des- 
potic power.  To  the  cautious  and  delicate  diplomacy  of 
Metternich,  the  Austrian  who,  since  the  downfall  of  Na- 
poleon, had  been  the  recognized  power  in  the  political 
affairs  of  Europe,  now  succeeded  the  rude  and  harsh  hand 


158      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

of  the  Russian  czar,  who  dreamed,  even  as  Napoleon  had 
prophesied,  of  making  all  Europe  Cossack. 

In  Germany  this  czar-inspired  despotism  sought  to 
crush  out  the  rising  spirit  of  progress  which  was  known 
as  "  Young  Germany,"  but  which  would  not  stay  crushed. 
This  progressive  spirit,  to  which  the  name  of  "  Young 
Germany"  was  given,  had  for  its  object  the  liberation  of 
German  politics,  religion,  and  manners  from  the  old  con- 
ventional shackles  which  such  out-of-date  diplomatists  as 
Metternich,  and  such  pronounced  despots  as  Czar  Nicholas, 
would  place  upon  the  people  of  Europe.  It  was  the  out- 
growth of  what  Balzac,  the  Frenchman,  called  "  the  four 
immense  revolutions:  America  in  1776,  France  in  1789, 
Europe  in  18 15,  and  France  in  1830" — the  protests  of 
patriotism  against  tyranny,  of  the  people  against  their  task- 
masters. It  came,  too,  because  of  that  growing  spirit  of 
democracy  which  was  slowly,  but  surely,  absorbing  the 
world  —  the  spirit  best  typified  by  Andrew  Jackson,  the 
American.  One  of  the  leaders  of  this  European  protest 
was  Heinrich  Heine,  a  German  Jew  of  Dusseldorf, — a 
cynic,  but  a  poet,  a  journalist,  a  philosopher,  and  a  patriot. 
Self-exiled  from  his  own  land  because  his  opinions  were  not 
palatable  to  the  conservative  government  of  Germany,  he 
took  up  his  residence  in  Paris,  and  wrought  and  wrote  for 
German  unity,  German  emancipation,  and  a  real  liberty  for 
Europe  and  the  world. 

Heine  has  been  called  the  "torch-bearer  of  his  time;  a 
soldier  in  the  war  of  the  liberation  of  humanity."  He  had 
a  bad  side  and  a  good  side,  as  do  very  many  reformers,  or 
those  who  try  to  right  the  wrongs  of  the  world  ;  but  his 
labors  were  for  progress,  and  to-day  the  world,  which  in 


WHAT   "OLD    HICKORY"   HELPED   TO   ACCOMPLISH.     1 59 

1840  had  no  name  too  bad  for  Hcinrich  Heine,  now 
recognizes  his  worth  as  a  factor  in  the  enfranchisement  of 
Germany,  as  the  satirist  who  saw  through  and  punctured 
every  ancient  fraud  and  every  bubble  of  sham,  as,  in  fact, 
one  who  had,  as  one  sfudent  of  his  character  remarks,  "set 
himself  to  fight  the  old  and  hail  the  new."  In  summing 
up  the  world's  workers  for  liberty  in  the  years  when 
democracy  was  gaining  its  sure  foothold,  we  must  never 
forget  the  German  exile  in  France,  Heinrich  Heine,  poet, 
philosopher,  and  patriot. 

As  has  already  been  stated,  he  had  praised  God  for  Amer- 
ica, and  hailed  it  as  Europe's  "loop-hole  of  escape," — a 
loop-hole  which,  as  he  expressed  it,  was  "larger  than  the 
dungeon  itself."  But  others  besides  Heine  had  appreciated 
this  fact.  For  years  European  emigration  to  America  had 
been  on  the  increase ;  as  steam  took  the  place  of  sailing' 
vessels,  and  home-making  in  Europe  was  a  hard  matter  for 
those  who  felt  that  they  were  toiling  without  hope,  more 
and  more,  men  and  women  from  the  old  world  crossed  the 
seas  to  America  to  find  homes  in  what  was,  in  truth,  to 
them,  the  land  of  promise.  In  the  ten  years  of  what  we 
may  call  the  age  of  Jackson — the  period  between  1830 
and  1840  —  six  hundred  thousand  immigrants  from  Europe 
landed  in  America,  and  found  in  its  wider  liberty  a  haven 
from  the  distress  and  disorder  that  kept  them  poor  or  held 
them  down  in  Europe. 

There  was  room  enough  and  work  in  plenty  for  these 
"exiles  from  aristocracy"  in  the  "  home  of  democracy." 
Certain  American-born,  though  short-sighted  "patriots," 
objected  to  the  foreign  "conquest  of  America,"  fearing  evil 
results.     But  the  years  have  proved  them  wrong. 


l60      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

"  She's  big  enough  and  broad  enough  to  keep  us  safe  from  harm, 
And  Uncle  Sam  is  rich  enough  to  give  us  all  a  farm," 

ran  a  popular  song  of  that  day,  and  these  new  comers 
were  those  who  helped  develop  the  almost  boundless  re- 
sources of  the  United  States ;  for  it  was  their  unskilled 
but  sturdy  labor  that  built  the  cities  and  railroads  of  the 
North,  made  productive  the  corn-fields  and  wheat-fields  of 
the  West,  and,  without  the  partisan  spirit  of  the  native- 
born  American,  really  did  good  by  their  entrance  into  the 
field  of  national  politics. 

"Europe  still  leads  the  world,"  wrote  the  remarkable 
young  Frenchman  Balzac,  in  1836.  "If  her  intellectual 
superiority  should  ever  be  taken  from  her,"  he  added 
prophetically,  "  it  could  only  be  by  Northern  America  ;  but 
there,  for  a  long  time  to  come,  territory  will  not  be  lacking 
for  the  population  to  develop." 

American  territory  was  largely  to  be  developed  by  the 
"swarming  hosts  of  Europe;"  but  toward  "intellectual 
superiority,"  even  in  the  day  when  young  Balzac  wrote, 
eminent  Americans  were  already  striving.  Soon  after 
1830  new  lights  in  literature  dawned  upon  the  world,  and 
before  1840  the  first  works  of  writers  whose  names  are 
now  foremost  in  English  literature  had  appeared, — the 
poems  of  Longfellow  and  Whittier  and  Holmes,  the  ro- 
mances of  Hawthorne,  the  historical  works  of  Bancroft  and 
Prescott,  Hildreth  and  Motley,  the  tales  of  Poe,  and  the 
essays  of  Emerson  and  Channing.  The  greatest  of  Ameri- 
can orators,  Webster  and  Clay,  were  stirring  men  by  their 
eloquence,  and  making  Americans  by  their  passionate 
patriotism  :  while  among  lawyers,  Kent  and  Story  were 
not    surpassed  on  either  side  of   the  Atlantic;  and  John 


WHAT   "OLD    HICKORY"   HELPED   TO    ACCOMPLISH.    l6l 

Marshall,  "the  greatest  of  chief  justices,"  had  only  just 
closed  his  long  and  useful  life. 

And,  in  1837,  Horace  Mann  became  Secretary  of  the 
Massachusetts  Board  of  Education.  That  meant  great 
things  for  America ;  for,  from  the  advent  of  Horace  Mann 
into  the  field  of  popular  education,  dates  the  real  growth 
of  that  bulwark  of  the  State  —  free  public  schools.  And 
Horace  Mann  is  acknowledged  to  be  the  "  Father  of  the 
American  Common  Schools,"  while  thousands  of  boys  and 
girls  to-day  —  yes,  millions,  for  his  influence  extended  across 
the  seas  —  have  reason  to  cherish  his  memory,  and  bless 
his  name,  for  making  education  possible  to  them  and  learn- 
ing easier. 

So,  when  1 840  came,  the  world  could  show  a  substantial 
advance,  even  though  still,  throughout  the  earth,  millions 
were  degraded  by  ignorance,  hampered  by  social  conditions, 
and  hopeless  of  any  improvement  ;  millions,  indeed,  had 
neither  the  conception  or  knowledge  of  what  really  was  self- 
improvement.  That  must  come  by  slow  growth  and  by  the 
philanthropic,  reformatory,  commercial,  and  even  selfish 
endeavors  of  those  who,  looking  out  over  the  world,  saw 
where,  here  and  there,  the  seeds  of  democracy,  of  influence, 
of  enlightment,  of  business  enterprise  or  political  power, 
could  be  sown  to  good  advantage,  and  so  went  out  into  the 
world  to  work,  according  to  their  lights  or  according  to 
their  desires,  for  the  advancement  and  progress  of  man. 


/  Kossuth  am  I    O  Future,  thou 
Thai  clearest  the  just  and  blott'st  the  vile, 
O'er  this  small  dust  in  reverence  bow. 
Remembering  what  I  was  erewhile. 

"  /  was  the  chosen  trump  wherethrough 
Our  God  sent  forth  awakening  breath  ; 
Came  chains  ?     Came  death  ?     The  strain  He  blew 
Sounds  on,  outliving  chains  and  death.'' 

James  Russell  Lowell. 


THE  AGE    OF   KOSSUTH. 
Revolution. 

(1840-18^0.) 


LOUIS  KOSSUTH, 

PATRIOT  OF  HUNGARIAN  LIBERTY, 
Born  Monak,  Hungary,  April  27,  /802, 
Died  Turin,  Italy,  March  20,  l8g.f. 


CHAPTER   X. 

WHY    THE    PEOPLE    GREW    RESTLESS. 
{From  1840  to  18 4J.) 

IN  the  year  1840  Louis  Adolph  Thiers  was  prime  minis- 
ter of  France ;  in  that  same  year  Louis  Kossuth  was 
released  from  an  Austrian  prison,  only  to  redouble  his 
efforts  for  liberalizing  Austria  or  delivering  Hungary  from 
the  heel  of  Austrian  despotism.  Both  were  comparatively 
young  men,  Thiers  being  forty-three  and  Kossuth  thirty- 
four,  and  each,  in  his  way,  exerted  a  remarkable  influence 
upon  the  century  in  which  he  lived  ;  for  both  were  hailed 
as  "liberators,"  and  both  were,  in  their  separate  spheres, 
organizers  and  leaders  of  that  mid-century  protest  of  the 
people  which  makes  the  decade  from  1840  to  1850  the 
era  of  constitutional  revolution,  best  typified,  perhaps, 
by  that  restless,  vigorous,  unsuccessful,  and  yet  in  his 
very  defeat  successful,  Hungarian  agitator,  from  whom  it 
may  be  rightly  called  the  age  of  Kossuth. 

In  1840  Louis  Philippe,  whom  the  Revolution  of  1830, 
thanks  to  the  young  Thiers  and  the  old  Lafayette,  had 
raised  to  the  throne  of  France,  "by  the  will  of  the  people," 
still  occupied  that  unstable  seat,  under  the  popular  nick- 
name of  "  the  Citizen  King." 

In  1840  Lafayette  had  long  been  dead  ;  Thiers,  "an 
ambitious  little  statesman,"  as  his  Kni;lish  critics  rather 
contemptuously   called  him,  was   pluckily   endeavoring  to 

165 


1 66      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

make  France  a  constitutional  monarchy,  in  which  the  power 
of  the  parhament  should  be  above  the  authority  of  the 
king,  —  a  belief  expressed  by  him  in  the  famous  words, 
"  The  king  reigns  and  does  not  govern."  France,  however, 
was  not  yet  advanced  to  that  picket-ground  of  progress. 
To  France's  ruler  and  lawmaker,  a  king  was  a  king  —  not 
a  president,  or  simply  a  chief  executive  ;  and  though  Louis 
Philippe  ruled,  not  by  so-called  divine  right,  but  "  by  the 
will  of  the  people,"  it  was  not  an  easy  rule,  even  for  a  man 
who  had  passed  through  so  many  experiences  as  had  this 
shifty,  uncertain,  and  most  unsatisfactory  king  of  France. 

Since  the  day  when  Napoleon  had  invaded  Egypt,  and 
especially  since  that  later  day  when  the  vigorous  and  able 
Mehemet  Ali,  viceroy  of  Egypt,  had  successfully  revolted 
against  his  suzerain,  the  Sultan  of  Turkey,  Christian  Europe 
had  been  endeavoring  to  solve  what  has  for  years  been 
known  as  "  the  Eastern  Question."  The  pith  of  this 
question  was  who  should  have  the  control  in  Europe  by 
obtaining  and  keeping  the  greatest  influence  over  the 
slowly  decaying  Turkish  Empire,  which  the  Czar  Nicholas 
wittily  called  "the  sick  man  of  the  East." 

"We  have  on  our  hands,"  said  the  Czar  to  the  British 
ambassador,  one  January  day  in  1844,  "a  sick  man,  a  very 
sick  man.  It  would  be  a  great  misfortune  if  one  of  these 
days  he  should  happen  to  die  before  the  necessary  arrange- 
ments are  all  made.  .  .  .  The  man  is  certainly  dying,  and 
we  must  not  allow  such  an  event  to  take  us  by  surprise." 

Other  statesmen  of  Europe,  even  before  that  January 
day  in  1844,  had  been  endeavoring  to  guard  against  thus 
being  taken  by  surprise.  One  of  these  was  Thiers  the 
Frenchman,  who,  because  of  the  hold  which  France  once 


WHY   THE    PEOPLE    GREW    RESTLESS.  167 

had  upon  the  East,  desired  to  regain  and  keep  it.  But  the 
other  powers  were  stronger  than  France  ;  and  in  July,  1840, 
England,  Russia,  Austria,  and  Prussia  formed  an  alliance 
to  resist  and  oppose  the  demands  upon  the  young  sultan  of 
Turkey,  made  by  Mehemet  Ali,  the  Egyptian  ;  for  these, 
they  decided,  if  granted,  would  have  strengthened  Egypt 
and  crippled  Turkey.  France,  as  the  supporter  of  Mehe- 
met Ali,  was  excluded  from  this  European  alliance  ;  but 
Thiers,  as  the  prime  minister  of  France,  singlehanded, 
held  out  against  all  Europe,  and  very  nearly  brought  about 
a  Continental  war. 

But  Louis  Philippe,  king  of  France,  had  more  regard  for 
the  friendship  of  England  than  for  dominance  in  the  East, 
and  would  give  the  Egyptian  ruler  no  support  or  aid.  The 
energetic  Thiers  was  superseded  by  the  cooler  and  more 
calculating  Guizot  ;  and  Mehemet  Ali,  deserted  by  France, 
had  no  alternative  but  to  yield  to  the  armed  invasion  made 
by  England  and  Austria,  and  give  up  the  territory  and  the- 
concessions  he  had  won  from  Turkey. 

This  failure  in  diplomacy  made  the  French  people  angry 
and  critical ;  so  Louis  Philippe,  to  recover  his  popularity, 
conceived  the  idea  of  pleasing  the  people  by  begging  from 
England  "the  ashes  of  Napoleon." 

For  nineteen  years  the  body  of  the  great  emperor  —  at 
once  "the  glory  and  the  scourge  of  his  age"  —  had  re-- 
posed  beneath  the  historic  willow-tree  on  the  rocky  island 
of  St.  Helena. 

"  Though  more  than  half  the  world  was  his, 
He  died  without  a  rood  his  own ; 
And  borrowed  from  his  enemies 
Six  foot  of  ground  to  lie  upon." 


l68     THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

So  wrote  the  Englishman  Thackeray,  hater  of  what"  he 
called  "  the  art  of  cutting  throats  ; "  but  in  a  "  half-sort  of 
way,"  an  admirer  as  well  as  a  satirizer  of  England's  great- 
est enemy  —  Napoleon. 

It  seems,  somehow,  to  have  got  into  the  head  of  the 
blundering  "Citizen  King  "  of  France  that  he  could  recover 
himself  in  the  good  opinion  of  the  French  people  by  bring- 
ing the  bones  of  the  great  Napoleon  back  to  the  France 
he  had  glorified  —  and  decimated. 

So  he  set  the  two  rival  Frenchmen  at  work,  —  Thiers, 
the  prime  minister,  and  Guizot,  the  ambassador  to  Eng- 
land, —  and  through  them  begged  from  England  the  body 
of  Napoleon. 

England  gave  an  immediate  and  gracious  consent  —  I 
have  often  wondered  if  there  was  not  a  reason  concealed 
in  that  ready  consent  ;  for  Lord  Palmerston,  the  prime 
minister  of  England,  was  a  remarkably  clear  and  far-seeing 
man,  and  particularly  disliked  the  king  of  France.  At  any 
rate,  consent  was  given  ;  and  on  the  fifteenth  of  October, 
1840, — the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the  arrival  of  the 
famous  prisoner  at  St.  Helena,  —  the  remains  of  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  were  taken  from  the  modest  grave  beneath  the 
St.  Helena  willow,  and  transported  to  France  in  a  French 
frigate,  whose  captain  was  the  son  of  the  king  of  France. 

In  due  time,  with  much  ceremonial  and  many  salutes, 
the  body  of  Napoleon  was  delivered  at  Paris,  where,  on  the 
fifteenth  of  December,  with  great  pomp  and  parade  (al- 
though Thackeray,  who  was  present,  denounced  the  whole 
affair  as  cheap,  —  "  sham  splendors,"  not  worthy  the 
great  name  and  fame  of  Napoleon),  it  was  solemnly  en- 
tombed beneath  the  great  dome  of  the  Invalides. 


WHY   THE   PEOPLE   GREW    RESTLESS.  169 

"  Sire,"  said  the  French  prince,  "  I  bring  you  the  body 
of  the  Emperor  Napoleon." 

"I  receive  it,"  said  the  French  king,  standing  beside  the 
catafalque,  "in  the  name  of  the  people  of  France." 

Thus  was  the  great  Napoleon  buried  according  to  his  own 
expressed  desire  —  "  by  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  among  the 
French  people  I  love  so  well;"  and  King  Louis  Thilippc,  who 
thought  he  had  done  a  great  stroke  of  polic)-,  turned  from 
the  new  grave  of  Napoleon,  and  took  the  path  to  his  own 
political  grave  and  that  of  the  Orleans  dynasty,  which  he 
was  thus  unconsciously  preparing. 

The  first  sign  of  this  pathway  to  ruin  appeared  even  be- 
fore that  "second  funeral  of  Napoleon."  For  in  August, 
1840,  while  the  French  ships  were  on  their  way  to  St. 
Helena  to  carry  out  the  pet  plan  of  Louis  Philippe,  a  ship 
sailed  into  the  port  of  Boulogne  having  as  passengers  fifty 
Frenchmen  and  a  tame  eagle.  The  leader  of  this  "  expedi- 
tion "  was  a  young  Frenchman  of  thirty-two,  the  Prince 
Louis  Napoleon,  presumptive  head  of  the  exiled  house  of 
Bonaparte,  and  nephew  of  the  great  emperor.  Once  before, 
in  1836,  he  had  returned  to  France  ;  and,  for  endeavoring 
to  "  corrupt"  the  French  garrison  at  Strasburg,  he  had  been 
arrested,  imprisoned,  and  exiled  to  America.  Now  he 
came  again  for  a  second  attempt. 

"  The  ashes  of  the  Emperor,  my  uncle,  should  not  return 
but  into  a  regenerated  France,"  he  announced  ;  and  landing 
near  Boulogne,  he  called  on  all  Frenchmen  to  rally  about 
the  eagle,  —  Napoleon's  famous  symbol. 

But  the  garrison  at  Boulogne  was  not  moved  by  the  ap- 
peal of  the  unsupported  adventurer  ;  the  people  did  not 
rally,  and  the  attempt  proved  as  tame  as  the  eagle.     Louis 


I/O      THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

Napoleon  was  arrested  while  endeavoring  to  escape,  and, 
being  brought  to  trial,  was  sentenced  to  imprisonment  for 
life  in  the  Castle  of  Ham,  a  state  prison  not  far  from  the 
old  city  of  Amiens. 

That  made  Louis  Napoleon  a  martyr ;  and  the  French 
people,  while  celebrating  the  return  of  the  bones  of  the 
great  Napoleon,  did  not  forget  that  the  "  nephew  of  his 
uncle"  was  feared  and  persecuted  by  the  government  of 
Louis  Philippe.  This  might  be  called  the  second  "  Napole- 
onic "  mistake  of  Louis  Philippe.  The  first  was,  as  I  have 
said,  the  bringing  back  of  the  body  of  Napoleon ;  for,  while 
it  awoke  the  "  slumbering  echoes  "  of  the  national  pride,  it 
also  set  the  people  to  comparing  the  present  with  the  past. 

"Napoleon  the  Emperor,"  they  declared,  "never  let  his 
country  fall  from  the  foremost  place  in  the  councils  of  Eu- 
rope, as  has  King  Louis  Philippe." 

And  France,  while  extolling  Napoleon,  bitterly  lamented 
its  present  humiliation. 

The  "councils  of  Europe"  were  indeed  "connected" 
without  France.  The  interference  in  the  affairs  of  Turkey 
and  Egypt  from  which  France  was  excluded,  the  alliance 
with  Russia  against  which  France  made  a  disregarded  pro- 
test, the  career  of  English  expansion  in  Asia  by  which  Eng- 
land blocked  the  Asiatic  efforts  of  her  ally  Russia,  and  at 
the  same  time  wrested  from  China  the  important  island 
possession  of  Hong  Kong,  raised  England  to  a  leadership 
in  Europe  and  the  East,  and  placed  Lord  Palmerston,  the 
prime  minister  of  England,  in  the  position  of  the  foremost 
statesman  of  Europe. 

"  P" ranee  dare  not  declare  war  against  the  four  united 
powers  of  Europe,"  he  said,  and  F" ranee  did  not  dare. 


WHY  tup:  people  (;rew  restless.  171 

But  Guizot,  the  crafty  diplomat,  had  succeeded  Thiers, 
the  energetic  statesman,  as  the  master-spirit  in  France. 
He  wisely  saw  that  peace  and  friendship  were  safer  for 
France  than  war,  and  he  bent  all  his  energies  to  securing 
these. 

"  A  war  with  England,  at  this  time,  would  be  the  great- 
est of  all  calamities,"  he  said  ;  and,  while  recognizing  the 
wounded  pride  of  France,  he  bravely  faced  the  rising  oppo- 
sition, and  appealed  to  the  thrift  and  prudence  of  his  coun- 
trymen, rather  than  to  their  vanity  and  ambition.  The 
administration  of  Peel  in  P2ngland  succeeded,  in  1841,  to 
that  of  Palmerston  ;  friendship  rather  than  enmity  between 
the  rival  nations  was  fostered  ;  the  king  of  France  and 
the  queen  of  England  exchanged  visits  ;  and,  by  Guizot's 
wise  methods,  what  was  known  as  the  cjitcnte  cordial — a 
friendly  understanding  —  was  established  between  F" ranee 
and  England. 

In  England,  however,  grown  so  powerful  abroad,  affairs 
at  home  were  not  going  smoothly.  The  success  of  demo- 
cracy in  America  urged  the  people,  who  still  lacked  suffi- 
cient voice  and  representation,  to  demand  greater  rights. 
The  Reform  Bill  of  1832,  described  as  "the  greatest  politi- 
cal fact  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,"  did  not  give  the  people 
the  privilege  of  local  self-government  they  desired,  and  agi- 
tation was  not  stilled  by  expansion  abroad  or  concession  at 
home.  The  "  Chartists  "  demanded  and  threatened  ;  par- 
ties, parliaments,  and  ministers  changed,  as  land-owTiers, 
manufacturers,  and  agitators  argued,  moved,  petitioned,  and 
protested  ;  Richard  Cobden  and  his  Anti  Corn-Law  League 
fought  to  alleviate  the  wide-spread  suffering  and  distress 
throughout  the  kingdom,  and  advocated,  as  the  best  means 


172      THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

of  relief  and  healthy  growth,  the  principles  of  peace,  non- 
intervention, retrenchment,  and  free-trade. 

"Among  moral  reformers,"  says  Mr.  Mackenzie,  "no 
man  can  challenge  a  higher  place  than  Richard  Cobden. 
"  No  mission  loftier  than  his,  or  fulfilled  more  purely  and 
nobly,  was  ever  undertaken  by  man." 

English  opinion,  however,  did  not  so  regard  him  in  1 840, 
and  the  unjust  laws  that  kept  the  people  of  England  poor 
were  but  slowly  changed.  But  they  were  changed  at  last ; 
ministers  and  parliaments  came  to  see  the  wisdom  of  the 
demands  of  the  reformers  ;  and  the  material  prosperity  of 
England  to-day  was  largely  brought  about  by  the  agita- 
tions and  efforts  of  Richard  Cobden,  who,  in  the  years  be- 
tween 1840  and  1845,  was,  with  his  associates,  earnestly 
advocating  his  theories,  and  slowly  educating  the  justice 
and  shaking  the  conviction  of  his  native  land. 

In  other  lands,  too,  reformers  were  at  work.  France,  as 
you  have  seen,  was  restless,  though  apparently  tranquil ; 
Germany,  to  whose  throne  (or  rather  to  the  throne  of 
Prussia)  a  new  king  had  succeeded  in  1840,  was  at  first 
pleased  with  his  promise  of  liberality  and  concession  ;  but 
the  new  king  proved  to  be  only  more  enlightened,  not  less 
absolute,  than  his  father.  Bavaria,  Hesse-Cassel,  and  Baden, 
were  agitated  by  demands  for  reform  ;  Hungar}',  Bohemia, 
and  Italy  talked  of  popular  rights  ;  and  it  was  seen  by  ear- 
nest students  of  the  time,  that  the  day  was  not  far  distant 
when  prince  and  people  would  be  in  open  strife.  Austria 
was  still  virtually  ruled  by  Metternich  —  the  "left-over 
statesman  "  of  Napoleonic  days,  who,  as  Mr.  Holland  de- 
clares, "worked  steadily  from  18 14  to  1848,  at  much  sacri- 
fice of  ease  and  pleasure,  in  hope  of  preserving  civilization 


WHY    THE   PEOPLE   GREW    RESTLESS.  173 

and  religion  from  being  destroyed  by  any  new  revolu- 
tion." 

But  the  people  of  Austria,  an  empire  of  different  nation- 
alities, became  restless  under  the  growth,  in  the  nations 
about  them,  of  freer  institutions  and  more  liberal  modes  of 
government  than  they  enjoyed,  and  neither  the  reactionary 
Prince  Metternich  nor  the  weak-minded  Kmperor  Ferdi- 
nand had  a  pleasant  or  peaceful  time.  In  Hungary,  espe- 
cially, the  most  powerful  "fief  of  the  empire,"  was  this 
discontent  growing,  led  on  by  Louis  Kossuth,  that  "child 
of  the  people."  Outstripping  in  his  desire  for  Hungarian 
independence,  the  Count  Szechenyi,  the  father  of  the  re- 
form movement,  and  the  deputy,  Francis  Deak,  who  led 
the  liberal  agitation,  Kossuth  took  so  dangerously  advanced 
a  position  in  behalf  of  Hungarian  nationality  that  even  the 
Count  Szechenyi  drew  back  in  fear,  and  endeavored  to  stay 
the  onward  rush  of  Kossuth,  as  the  champion  of  liberty 
and  the  unterrified  opponent  of  Austrian  despotism. 

All  who  contribute  to  progress  are  entitled  to  recogni- 
tion. Although  the  Count  Szechenyi  became  fearful  of 
the  storm  he  had  raised,  and  sought  to  curb  it,  his  contri- 
butions to  Furope's  enfranchisement  were  at  once  large  and 
practical. 

"Do  not  constantly  trouble  yourselves  with  the  vanished 
glories  of  the  past,"  he  said  to  his  countrymen.  "Rather 
let  your  determined  patriotism  bring  about  the  prosperity 
of  the  beloved  fatherland.  Say  not  •  Hungary  has  been,' 
Say,  rather,  '  Hungary  shall  be! 

But  Louis  Kossuth,  who  has  well  been  described  as  "the 
very  incarnation  of  the  great  democratic  ideas  of  his  age" 
—  the  fruit,  it  may  be,  of  the  era  established  by  Andrew 


174     THE   STORY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

Jackson  —  was  not  content  to  advise.     His  desire  was  to 

do. 

When  the  Count  Szechenyi  and  the  Hungarian  aristoc- 
racy drew  back  from  his  leadership,  and  tried  to  call  a  halt, 
Kossuth  repeated  his  demand  for  independence. 

"With  you,  if  you  choose,"  he  said  boldly,  to  those  who 
counselled  moderation.  "  But  without  you  or  against  you, 
if  it  must  be." 

These  were  brave  words,  and  they  found  an  echo  in  the 
heart  of  every  patriot  and  lover  of  liberty  throughout  the 
world.  Poland  and  Ireland,  each  deeming  itself  an  enslaved 
nation,  roused  themselves  to  unsuccessful  action.  Mickie- 
wicz,  the  exiled  Pole,  the  poet  of  a  down-trodden  people, 
"the  consolation  of  a  proud  and  oppressed  race,"  as  he  has 
been  called,  sought  in  vain  to  awaken  Europe  to  a  renewed 
interest  in  the  hopeful  but  smothered  patriots  of  Poland  ; 
and  in  Ireland,  Daniel  O  Connell,  the  Irish  agitator,  "  the 
incarnation  of  the  people,"  born  in  the  birth-year  of  the 
American  Revolution,  labored  and  argued  for  Irish  inde- 
pendence, demanded  the  repeal  of  the  Act  of  Union  be- 
tween Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  on  the  famous  Hill 
of  Tara,  in  August,  1843,  gathered  a  quarter  of  a  million 
of  dissatisfied  Irishmen,  and  by  his  marvellous  eloquence 
'swayed  the  vast  multitude  to  passion,  patriotism,  and  tears. 

But  little  came  of  it. 

"The  harp  that  once  through  Tara's  halls 

The  soul  of  music  shed " 

• 

fell  stringless  and  broken  again.  In  the  following  October, 
O'Connell  was  arrested  as  a  public  agitator  ;  he  was  tried, 
and  condemned  to  imprisonment,  but  was  pardoned,  and, 


WHY   THE   PEOPLE   GREW    RESTLESS.  1/5 

bereft  of  his  power  and  leadership,  died  soon  after,  a  broken 
old  man,  possessing  the  sympathy  of  the  world,  but  mourn- 
ing the  impossibility  of  ever  "  freeing  Ireland." 

So,  throughout  the  world,  the  years  between  1840  and 
1845  saw  the  growth  of  the  demand  for  constitutional 
liberty  —  the  chief  factor  in  the  political  progress  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century.  Canada  clamored  for  it ;  and  in 
1 84 1  Upper  and  Lower  Canada  were  joined  into  a  united 
province,  and  received  from  the  British  government  con- 
cessions which  have  made  what  is  now  the  "Dominion  "  a 
faithful  part  of  the  British  Empire  ;  the  Cretans  tried  it 
in  1841,  only  to  be  again  crushed  down  by  Turkey  ;  while 
in  the  rich  province  of  Puerto  Principe  the  "  Puritans  of 
Cuba,"  as  they  have  been  called,  were  again  showing  their 
restlessness  beneath  the  hated  yoke  of  Spain. 

In  enfranchised  South  America  things  were  not  as  the 
lovers  of  liberty  desired.  "The  New  World,"  wrote  Bal- 
zac at  that  time,  "  is  still  delivered  over  to  revolutions.  .  .  . 
When  one  thinks  of  the  silly  things  that  have  been  written 
on  the  liberal  governments  of  America,  one  cannot  help 
wondering  how  such  ideas  ever  acquired  popularity."  But 
Balzac  was  an  energetic  young  Frenchman,  who,  because 
he  was  a  genius,  felt  that  he  knew  all  things.  He  did  not, 
however,  understand  the  Spanish-American  character,  and 
could  not  appreciate  the  truth  that  Victor  Hugo  saw,  that 
"  Equality  must  have  a  synonym  —  Humanity,"  and  that 
humanity  was  a  quality  that  enfranchised  South  America 
had  yet  to  learn. 

Even  the  great  republic  of  the  United  States  —  the  pre- 
ceptor and  leader  in  righteous  revolution  —  was  learning 
this  but  slowly.     The  twenty-five  "sovereign  States"  that 


cT\TC?;iar>fM!  SdlOU 


1/6     THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

composed  the  republic  in  1840  were  only  then  beginning 
the  agitation  that,  in  time,  made  America  really  free ;  and 
when  the  census  of  1840  showed  the  Southern  States  that 
they  were  really  falling  behind  their  Northern  associates  in 
wealth  and  population,  they  sought  to  break  the  Missouri 
Compromise  of  1820,  and  by  the  formation  of  slave  States 
out  of  the  unorganized  national  domain  west  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, regain  the  power  and  control,  that  seemed  to  be  slip- 
ping from  them. 

In  the  North,  slowly  but  surely,  the  work  of  the  lovers 
of  freedom  was  already  beginning  to  bear  fruit.  Often 
fanatical  in  their  assertions,  and  unwise  in  their  actions,  the 
handful  of  Abolitionist  reformers  made  slow  converts  — 
but  they  made  them  ;  and  the  demand  for  "  free  soil,  free 
labor,  and  free  men,"  which,  a  few  years  later,  became  the 
rallying  cry  of  a  new  political  party,  was,  even  in  1 840,  ac- 
cepted as  the  necessity  for  real  American  progress,  by  all 
who  were  gradually  growing  into  that  advocacy  of  liberal 
ideas  which  reared  itself  upon  an  aggressive  revolt  from 
the  old  methods  and  the  old  tyrannies. 

Literature,  the  handmaid  of  progress,  was  already  lead- 
ing the  van  in  behalf  of  real  freedom  ;  and  Garrison,  who 
said  boldly,  "  I  will  be  as  harsh  as  truth  and  as  uncom- 
promising as  justice,"  found  his  work  supplemented  by  the 
philippics  of  Wendell  Phillips  and  the  pleas  of  Charles 
Sumner  ;  while  Whittier,  the  poet  of  freedom,  perhaps  did 
more  in  crystallizing  the  conscience  and  thought  of  the 
North  than  any  other  writer  of  those  days  of  a  seemingly 
unpopular  revolution.  From  1833  to  1848  the  Quaker 
poet,  whose  verses,  as  Bryant  said,  "  stirred  the  blood  like 
a  trumpet  calling  to  battle,"  was  writing  and  publishing 


WHY   THE    PEOPLE    GREW    RESTLESS.  \^^ 

his  "Voices  of  Freedom;"  and,  in  1840  he  sent  to  the 
World's  Convention  of  the  Friends  of  Emancipation,  at 
London,  those  stirring  verses  that  Hterally  "called  the 
roll "  of  the  forces  of  Freedom,  and  which  still  stand  as  a 
remarkable  summing  up  of  the  cause  of  liberty  as  the 
.world  saw  it  in   1 840  : 

"Yes,  let  them  gather — Summon  forth 
The  pledged  philanthropy  of  Earth, 
From  every  land  whose  hills  have  heard 

The  bugle-blast  of  Freedom  waking, 
Or  shrieking  of  her  symbol  bird 

From  out  his  cloudy  eyrie  breaking: 
Where  justice  hath  one  worshipper. 

Or  truth  one  altar  built  to  her  : 
Where'er  a  human  eye  is  weeping 

O'er  wrongs  which  Earth's  sad  children  know  — 
Where'er  a  single  heart  is  keeping 

Its  prayerful  watch  with  human  woe : 
Then,  let  them  come,  and  greet  each  other, 
And  know  in  each  a  friend  and  brother  1 " 

That  whole  poem  is  well  worth  re-reading  to-day.  Whit- 
tier's  "  symbol  bird  "  was  by  no  means  the  "  tame  eagle  " 
of  Louis  Napoleon;  and  his  roll-call  was  more  than  that  — 
it  was,  in  truth,  a  clarion  call  for  liberty. 

And  yet,  so  halting  is  even  reform  sometimes,  that 
same  convention,  assembled  in  London  in  June,  1840,  to 
advocate  and  work  for  freedom  throughout  the  world,  re- 
fused seats  to  the  female  delegates  sent  to  take  part  in 
its  proceedings  ! 

While  intellectual  and  political  advances  were  being 
made  throughout  the  civilized  world  in  this  fifth  decade 
of  the   Nineteenth   Century,  science  and    invention  were 


I/S      THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

keeping  in  step  with  the  advance,  while  photography,  the 
handmaid  of  science  and  art,  had  but  just  stepped  into 
the  arena  of  the  world's  practical  progress. 

In  1839  Arago,  a  famous  French  astronomer,  announced 
to  the  French  Academy  of  Science  that  a  panorama  artist 
named  Daguerre  had  discovered  a  way  of  making  per- 
manent sunlight  pictures.  This  was  the  daguerreotype  — 
the  forerunner  of  modern  photography.  In  that  same 
year  of  1839  an  Englishman  named  Fox  Talbot  made 
almost  the  same  discovery ;  in  1840  Professor  Draper  of 
New  York  first  actually  made  photographic  portraits  from 
life.  After  that,  experiments  were  multiplied;  but  the 
invention,  even  then,  was  not  esteemed  as  anything  more 
than  a  plaything  in  art.  Daguerreotypes  were  luxuries, 
costly,  and  not  always  permanent  or  satisfactory ;  and  the 
uses  to  which  the  sun  could  be  put  for  the  pleasure  and 
aid  of  man  were  not  even  dreamed  by  those  "photographic 
cranks"  of  sixty  years  ago.  In  nothing  has  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  made  more  marvellous  strides  than  in  the 
art  of  photography. 

While  this  beginning  of  the  great  enslavement  of  light 
for  the  service  of  man  was  being  made  practically  possible, 
the  ingenuity  of  man  was  also  seeking  quicker  means  for 
the  conveyance  of  thought.  The  post-office  and  the  postal 
system  of  modern  civilization,  dating  back  to  the  beginning 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  when  the  University  of  Paris 
established  an  inland  postal  service,  had  progressed  but 
slowly  through  all  the  years  thereafter,  although  Oliver 
Cromwell,  greatest  of  Englishmen,  saw  the  value  of  an 
organized  and  reliable  postal  service,  and,  during  his  pro- 
tectorate, a  regular   system   of  postage  and  carriers  was 


WHY  THE    PEOPLE   GREW    RESTLESS.  1 79 

attempted  in  England.  Louis  the  Eleventh,  a  great  but 
unscrupulous  French  king,  founded  in  1464  the  postal 
system  of  France,  while  the  Austrian  postal  service  is  one 
of  the  oldest  on  record.  In  America,  Benjamin  Franklin 
first  made  the  American  post-office  self-supporting ;  but 
all  these  systems  were  but  attempts  in  the  way  of  reliable 
service,  and  amounted  to  nothing  of  practical  value  or 
benefit  until  the  real  postal  reform  was  put  into  operation 
in  England  in  1840. 

John  Hill,  an  Englishman,  was  the  originator  of  the 
plan  of  penny  postage  in  Cromwell's  day,  although  his 
efforts  came  to  naught ;  but  another  public  benefactor  of 
the  same  name — Rowland  Hill,  of  Birmingham  —  made 
himself  in  the  "  forties  "  the  father  of  the  modern  postal 
service  by  recommending  a  penny  postage  on  all  letters  in 
the  United  Kingdom  not  exceeding  half  an  ounce  in  weight. 

"Perhaps,"  he  said,  "the  difficulties  in  the  way  might 
be  obviated  by  using  a  bit  of  paper  just  large  enough  to 
bear  the  stamp,  and  covered  at  the  back  with  a  glutinous 
wash  which,  by  applying  a  little  moisture,  might  be  at- 
tached to  the  back  of  the  letter."  And  there  you  have 
the  modern  postage-stamp  ! 

Rowland  Hill's  recommendations  were,  after  much  dis- 
cussion, accepted  by  Parliament ;  they  were  assented  to  by 
the  British  government,  and  penny  postage  began  in  Janu- 
ary, 1840.  No  suggestion  of  practical  utility,  so  one  au- 
thority declares,  has  ever  been  "so  speedily  effective  in 
promoting  reforms  in  any  degree  so  beneficial  to  the  human 
race,"  as  was  this  penny-postage  plan  instituted  by  Rowland 
Hill.  Tt)-day  no  country  so  small,  no  nation  so  large,  but 
has  an  established  postal  service  ;  and  the  system  of  inter- 


l8o      THE    STORY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH   CENTURY, 

national  postage  is  one  of  the  most  effective  methods  of 
promoting  the  "neighborliness,"  if  not  the  brotherhood 
of  man. 

Following  closely  upon  this  modern  and  beneficial  meth- 
od in  1840  for  the  systematic  communication  of  thought, 
came  the  official  acceptance  and  adoption  of  Professor 
Morse's  wonderful  invention  of  the  electric  telegraph. 
After  disheartening  failures,  rebuffs,  and  discouragements, 
the  determined  inventor  at  last  found  himself  empowered 
by  Congress  to  construct  an  experimental  telegraph  line 
between  Baltimore  and  Washington.  It  was  completed ; 
and  on  the  twenty-fourth  of  September,  1 844,  Morse  stood 
beside  his  instrument,  set  up  in  the  Chamber  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  in  the  Capitol,  and  despatched  over  the  wires 
to  Baltimore  the  message  suggested  to  him  by  a  girl  of  fif- 
teen, who  stood  beside  him  at  his  instrument :  "  What  hath 
God  wrought!  " 

God  had  indeed  wrought  much  —  for  science,  for  civili- 
zation, and  for  mankind ;  for,  from  the  persistent  endeavors 
of  this  undaunted  inventor,  came  the  rapid  and  accurate 
conveyance  of  thought.  To-day  two  oceans  are  crossed 
and  seamed  with  electric  cables,  and  the  news  of  the  world 
is  read  each  morning  in  every  civilized  home.  Samuel 
Finley  Breeze  Morse  in  1844  stretched  the  first  wire  of 
that  magnificent  system  that  in  time  brought  all  the  world 
in  touch,  and  no  invention  or  happening  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century  has  so  signally  united  and  benefited  all  mankind. 

If  was  in  1840  that  lucifer  matches,  before  that  date 
only  a  cumbrous  and  bothersome  experiment,  became  so 
cheap  as  to  secure  universal  adoption  and  discard  the  old- 
time  methods  of  producing  light  and  fire,  while  the  light- 


WHY   THE   PEOPLE   GREW    RESTLESS.  l8l 

ing  and  heating  of  the  houses  of  the  people  by  gas  and  oil 
and  coal  made  rapid  strides  during  those  busy,  creative 
years  toward  the  close  of  the  half  century. 

So,  gradually,  the  march  of  progress  which  affected  social 
order  and  political  forms,  which  increased  the  desires  of 
men  for  greater  constitutional  and  personal  liberty,  and 
drew  the  world's  unrest  onward  to  the  new  upheaval  that 
closed  the  first  half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  exhibited 
itself  also  in  the  fields  of  intellectual  and  scientific  en- 
deavor ;  while  the  years  that  brought  forward  Carlyle  and 
Emerson,  Balzac  and  Hugo,  Strauss  and  Schelling,  Schop- 
enhauer and  Humboldt,  Ranke  and  Bancroft,  Tennyson 
and  Macaulay,  Agassiz  and  Whittier,  and  made  them  impor- 
tant factors  in  the  world's  developing  thought,  marked  also 
a  distinctly  forward  step  in  the  comfort  and  enlightenment 
of  the  race. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

HOW    ALL    THE    WORLD    HAD    YET    ANOTHER    SHAKING-UP. 

{From  1845  to  iSjo.) 

ON  the  sixteenth  of  September,  1845,  Abd-El-Kader 
the  heroic  Arabian  patriot,  defeated  the  Frend 
"  expansionists  "  in  Africa  ;  in  June  of  that  same  year  the 
republic  of  Mexico  declared  war  against  the  "  expansion- 
ists "  of  North  America;  and  on  the  fourteenth  of  Decem- 
ber the  Sikhs  of  the  Punjab  —  the  natives  of  Northern 
India  —  rose  against  British  expansion.  The  protest 
against  the  new  order  of  things  —  growth  by  absorption  — 
was  vigorously  begun  by  the  patriots  of  what  Kipling  calls 
"the  lesser  tribes  without  the  law." 

Of  course  these  patriotic  protests  were  fruitless.  The 
valiant  tribesmen  of  North  Africa  were  bravely  led  ;  the 
soldiers  of  Mexico  were,  as  General  Grant  asserts,  "brave 
soldiers  inefficiently  led  ;"  the  Sikhs  of  the  Punjab,  as  be- 
came their  names,  for  Sikh  means  "disciple,"  were  brave 
soldiers  and  fierce  religionists,  feud-torn,  and  united  only 
against  the  English.  But,  brave  or  not,  they  all  went  down 
in  defeat  before  the  invincible  though  lesser  forces  of  the 
trained  soldiers  of  civilization.  Algeria  submitted  to  its 
French  conquerors  in  1847,  and  to-day  is  prosperous  und^.r 
French  rule;  Mexico  closed  a  losing  fight  in  1847,  when 
its  capital  city  fell  before  the  irresistible  arms  of  GenenJ 
Scott,  and  nearly  a  million  square  miles  of  territory  were 

182 


TYPES    OF    THE      )  Emerson  Webster 

'  Rowland  H.ll  Morse 

AGE    OF    KOSSUTH  )  O'Connell  Kossuth 


now  THE  WORLD  HAD  ANOTHER  SHAKING  UP.  1 83 

annexed,  by  conquest  and  purchase,  to  the  United  States. 
But  to-day  Mexico  is  united  because  of  that  war  of  1846, 
and  her  patriots  celebrate  as  hohdays  the  anniversaries  of 
Chapultepec  and  MoUno  del  Rcy,  which  are  regarded  as 
Mexican  defeats.  The  Punjab  was  conquered  and  annexed 
to  the  British  domains  in  1849,  even  though  the  Sikhs 
were  acknowledged  to  be  the  bravest  foemen  faced  by  the 
English  in  India ;  but  to-day  the  Punjab,  with  its  twenty- 
five  millions  of  inhabitants,  is  a  great,  peaceable,  and  pros- 
perous section  of  England's  Indian  Empire,  well  on  its  way 
toward  a  progressive  civilization,  with  schools  and  colleges, 
railways  and  telegraphs,  newspapers  and  literary  societies, 
trade  and  manufactures,  and  life  is  safer  to-day  in  the  Pun- 
jab than  it  ever  was  through  the  long  centuries  of  barbar- 
ism, feud,  and  warfare.  Patriotism,  unless  accompanied  by 
progress,  is  of  little  worth  ;  and  education  by  conquest  is 
one  of  the  paths  along  which  mankind  advances  toward 
final  and  universal   brotherhood. 

It  is  sometimes  hard  for  us  to  see  this  in  the  midst  of 
the  sorrows  and  worries  that  attend  the  path  of  conquest, 
and  the  immediate  effect  upon  the  victor  is  often  scarcely 
less  disastrous  than  upon  the  vanquished.  The  first  French 
colonists  to  Algeria  either  died  off,  as  do  most  first  colo- 
nists, or  left  in  disgust ;  the  arrogance  of  British  military 
rule  led  to  frequent  disturbance  in  India  ;  and  the  conquest 
of  Mexico  by  the  United  States,  more  vehemently  opposed 
by  large  numbers  of  American  citizens  than  any  similar 
attempt  at  "  expansion,"  stirred  the  slavery  fighters  of  the 
North  to  indignant  protest  against  the  accession  of  more 
slave  territory,  and  gradually  brought  about  that  inevitable 
conflict  based  upon  Abraham    Lincoln's  immoral  declara- 


1 84     THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

tion,  ten  years  after  the  close  of  the  Mexican  war,  that  "  a 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand,"  and  "that  a 
government  half  slave  and  half  free  cannot  endure."  Lit- 
erature came  to  the  aid  of  this  protest  against  slave  expan- 
sion ;  and  the  "  Biglovv  Papers  "  of  James  Russell  Lowell 
—  a  born  reformer  in  his  hatred  of  tyrants  and  demagogues 
— helped  on  the  great  advance  by  the  pitiless  sarcasms  of 
one  who  beheved  the  Mexican  war  "  a  national  crime,  com- 
mitted in  behoof  of  slavery,  our  common  sin." 

The  crisis  forced  upon  the  American  people  by  their 
success  in  the  war  with  Mexico  was  immediate  and  stern. 
North  and  South  became  engaged  in  a  contest  of  words 
and  measures  as  to  the  extension  or  limitation  of  slavery ; 
and  Whittier's  ringing  words,  as  he  read  the  terms  of  the 
treaty  of  peace  with  Mexico,  roused  in  the  lovers  of  liberty 
a  determination  to  curb  the  conquest  of  the  national  do- 
main by  the  "national  sin  "  :  — 

"  Forever  ours  1  for  good  or  ill,  on  us  the  burden  lies ; 
God's  balance,  watched  by  angels,  is  hung  across  the  skies. 
Shall  Justice,    Truth,    and    Freedom    turn    the    poised    and   trembling 

scale  ? 
Or  shall  the  Evil  triumph,  and  robber  wrong  prevail? 
Shall  the  broad  land  o'er  which  our  flag  in  starry  splendor  waves 
Forego  through  us  its  freedom,  and  bear  the  tread  of  slaves? 

By  all  for  which  the  martyrs  bore  their  agony  and  shame ; 
By  all  the  warning  words  of  truth  with  which  the  prophets  came ; 
By  the  Future  which  awaits  us ;  by  all  the  hopes  which  cast 
Their  faint  and  trembling  beams  across  the  blackness  of  the  past ; 
And  by  the  blessed  thought  of  Him  who  for  Earth's  freedom  died, 
O  my  people  1  O  my  brothers  1  let  us  choose  the  righteous  side." 

Calhoun  for  the  Southern  extremists,  and  Seward  for 
the    Northern    protestors,  fought  the    battle  out    on    the 


HOW  THE  WORLD  HAD  ANOTHER  SHAKING  UP.  1 85 

floor  of  Congress  ;  the  giants  of  the  earlier  clays,  Webster 
the  Northerner,  and  Clay  the  Border-State  man,  sought  to 
arrest  the  conflict  by  compromise  ;  for  a  time,  as  Dr. 
Edward  Channing  puts  it,  "  sentiment  yielded  to  interest," 
and  the  "  Compromise  of  1850  admitted  California  into  the 
Union  as  a  free  State,  permitted  no  restriction  against  sla- 
very in  the  southern  territories,  and  passed,  what  the  North- 
ern reformers  denounced  as  '  the  sum  of  all  villanies,'  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law." 

All  this,  while  an  apparent  victory  for  the  South,  only 
made  the  North  more  determined  in  opposition  to  the 
growth  of  slavery,  so  that  the  earliest  results  of  the  Mexi- 
can war  seemed  to  be  distrust,  antagonism,  and  evil. 

And  yet  to-day,  in  the  light  of  later  events,  the  Mexican 
war  is  seen  to  have  been  of  advantage  to  both  republics ; 
the  school  of  preparation  for  America's  greater  and  neces- 
sary conflict,  the  first  "  strenuous  step  "  along  the  highway 
of  liberty,  expansion,  and  development. 

Meanwhile,  across  the  sea,  an  even  mightier  struggle  was 
preparing.  On  the  twenty-sixth  of  May,  1846,  Louis  Na- 
poleon Bonaparte  escaped  from  his  prison  in  the  Castle  of 
Ham;  Louis  Kossuth,  who  had  led  a  "boycott"  of  Aus- 
trian manufactures  until  Hungary  should  be  released,  was 
elected,  in  1847,  a  member  of  the  Hungarian  diet,  or  par- 
liament, and  demanded  of  Austria  constitutional  reform  ;  a 
terrible  famine  in  Ireland,  in  1846,  forced  England  to  such 
acts  of  relief  as  broke  down  its  arbitrary  measures  for 
"protecting  its  industries,"  and  pledged  the  nation  to  free 
trade  ;  the  rising,  independent  spirit  of  the  Prussian  peo- 
ple compelled  the  king  to  call  a  representative  assembly  of 
all  the  German   states  to  discuss  the  question  of  popular 


1 86      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

rights  ;  and  throughout  all  Europe  the  spirit  of  protest 
against  the  old  order  of  kingly  despotism  seemed  once 
again  awakening.  All  the  world  recognized  this;  and 
Whittier,  poet  of  freedom,  open-eyed  for  every  new  ad- 
vance, wrote,  jubilantly,  in  1848  :  — 

"  The  day  is  breaking  in  the  East  of  which  the  prophet  told, 
And  brightens  up  the  sky  of  Time,  the  Christian  Age  of  Gold ; 
Old  Might  to   Right  is  yielding,  battle  blade  to  clerkly  pen, 
Earth's  monarchs  are  her  people,  and  her  serfs  stand  up  like  men ; 
The  isles  rejoice  together ;  in  a  day  are  nations  born. 
And  the  slave  walks  free  in  Tunis  and  by  Stamboul's  Golden  Horn  I " 

The  day  really  "broke  in  the  East"  when,  on  the 
twenty-second  of  February,  1848,  the  birthday  of  Washing- 
ton, prince  of  patriots,  the  French  government  dispersed 
a  banquet  in  Paris  prepared  by  the  advocates  of  popular 
reform.  France  was  still  far  from  free  ;  her  constitutional 
monarchy  was  little  better  than  a  "  close  corporation  ;  "  her 
king  was  tricky  and  dishonest ;  only  one  Frenchman  in 
thirty  had  the  privilege  of  a  vote  ;  the  ruling  party  in  par- 
liament disregarded  the  public  will,  and  the  people  were 
ripe  for  revolt.  Grumbling  at  the  selfish  king  blossomed 
into  open  protests  against  the  illiberal  policy  of  his  minis- 
ters ;  speeches  of  criticism  gave  place  to  denunciations  of 
the  government  ;  the  opposition  party  in  the  Assembly 
grew  stronger  and  more  insistent ;  the  people  of  Paris 
began  again,  as  in  the  days  of  the  first  Revolution,  to  cry 
for  justice  ;  and  at  last,  when  the  reform  banquet  of  Feb- 
ruary 2 2d  was  prohibited,  the  match  was  set  to  the  tinder. 
The  people  rose  in  anger ;  they  barricaded  the  streets  of 
Paris,  and   declared    war    on    the   government  ;    the  city 


now   THE   WORLD    HAD    ANOTHER    SHAKING  UP.    1 8/ 

militia  called  out  to  disperse  the  rioters,  took  their  part. 
Guizot,  the  unpopular  minister,  resigned  ;  the  regulars  fired 
on  the  mob  ;  the  people  vowed  vengeance ;  king  Louis 
Philippe  begged  Thiers  to  act  as  minister ;  the  regulars 
were  drawn  back  in  submission  ;  the  mob  and  the  militia 
marched  on  the  Tuilleries. 

It  was  the  old  story  of  the  Revolution  of  1789,  without 
its  brutality  and  bloodshed.  The  mob  and  the  militia  tore 
down  the  barricades  ;  revolt  was  storming  the  palace ;  the 
people  were  in  control  once  more. 

Then  Louis  Philippe  abdicated  the  throne  of  France  in 
favor  of  his  grandson,  and  disguised  as  a  tradesman,  under 
the  name  of  William  Smith,  fled  with  the  queen  in  a 
"hack"  from  Paris  and  the  France  he  had  misgoverned. 
France,  weary  of  his  rule,  which  might  have  been  glorious 
had  he  but  been  a  man,  wished  for  a  republic  —  and  got  it ! 

Two  days  after,  on  the  twenty-fourth  of  February,  1848, 
the  republic  was  declared ;  "  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fra- 
ternity "  were  again  the  watchwords  of  the  "sovereign 
people  "  ;  the  tricolor  was  restored  as  the  flag  of  France  ; 
Lamartine,  poet  and  patriot,  was  made  one  of  the  new 
ministry  ;  the  nation  accepted  the  action  of  Paris  and  wel- 
comed the  republic ;  and  the  second  French  Revolution  — 
that  of  1848  —  was  complete  ! 

It  needed  but  this  success  to  set  Europe  in  a  blaze. 
Year  by  year  the  people  had  grown  more  and  more  dis- 
contented with  their  condition.  They  were  tired  of  acting 
as  the  tools  and  puppets  of  self-seeking  kings,  princes,  and 
ministers.  The  despotism  of  the  Bourbons  enraged  Italy ; 
the  absolutism  of  Austria  infuriated  Hungary;  the  arro- 
gance of    her  Prussian  king  aroused    Germany  ;    and   the 


1 88      THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

restlessness  of  the  agitator  had,  for  the  moment,  more 
influence  than  the  command  of  the  tyrant. 

Stirred  by  the  news  from  Paris,  and  fired  by  the  elo- 
quence of  Kossuth,  Hungary  spoke  out  in  bold  demand 
for  reform,  and  sent  a  deputation  to  King  Ferdinand  of 
Austria,  offering  him  his  choice  between  reform  or  revolu- 
tion. As  it  seemed  to  be  a  case  of  what  we  call  "Hobson's 
choice,"  reform  was  granted  ;  home  rule  was  established 
in  Hungary ;  Szechenyi  and  Deak  were  made  members  of 
the  new  Hungarian  government,  and  Kossuth  was  ap- 
pointed minister  of  finance. 

By  this  time  poor  King  Ferdinand  of  Austria  was  in  hot 
water.  The  flight  of  the  king  of  France,  and  the  demands 
of  Kossuth,  stirred  the  Austrian  people  to  clamor  for 
greater  freedom.  Headed  by  the  students,  who  compelled 
the  magistrates  of  the  city  to  go  with  them,  a  Vienna  mob 
forced  its  way  into  the  imperial  palace,  and  demanded  a 
liberal  constitution.  Terrified  at  this  uprising  of  the  peo- 
ple, Metternich,  the  crafty  and  aristocratic  relic  of  the  days 
of  despotism,  resigned  his  office  of  prime  minister,  and  fled 
in  a  hurry  ;  the  king  summoned  a  national  assembly ;  but 
when  the  students,  the  militia,  and  the  people  tried  to  dic- 
tate laws.  King  Ferdinand,  too,  began  to  fear  for  his  head, 
and  fled  from  his  capital.  Then  Italy,  which  was  under 
Austrian  control,  followed  the  lead  of  Hungary  and  Aus- 
tria, drove  out  its  viceroys  and  rulers,  sent  the  Austrian 
garrisons  packing,  and,  headed  by  Charles  Albert,  king  of 
Sardinia  and  Savoy,  united  the  peninsula  in  a  defiance  of 
its  tyrants. 

The  uprising  grew  with  success.  From  the  English 
Channel  to  the  borders  of  Turkey  the  leaders  of  the  people 


HOW  THE   WORLD   HAD  ANOTHER    SHAKING   UP.    1 89 

hurrahed  for  constitutional  Uberty  ;  Milan,  Messina,  Mu- 
nich, Prague,  Berlin,  Vienna,  Naples,  and  the  smaller  Ger- 
man cities  joined  the  ranks  of  reform  ;  London  itself  was 
threatened  by  Chartist  mobs  ;  kings,  princes,  viceroys,  and 
ministers  went  scurrying  for  shelter ;  even  the  Pope  of 
Rome  fled  from  the  Vatican ;  the  Emperor  of  Austria 
abdicated  ;  and  the  King  of  Prussia  declared  his  willingness 
to  grant  reforms  and  unite  all  Germany  into  a  nation.  If 
only  the  patriotic  leaders  of  the  revolt  against  old  tyrannies 
had  joined  hands  in  mutual  help  and  a  union  for  indepen- 
dence, the  second  half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  might 
have  dawned  upon  a  free  and  united  Europe. 

But  the  day  for  unity  of  action  had  not  yet  come.  Suc- 
cess in  revolution  often  reacts  upon  those  who  lead  it. 
The  people  of  France  —  or  Paris  —  which  is  declared  to 
be  France — split  up  into  parties  and  cHques,  each  jealous 
of  the  other,  and  each  distrusting  the  other.  The  taxpayers 
began  to  grumble  at  the  new  burdens  laid  upon  them  ;  the 
National  Assembly  undertook  to  rid  itself  of  the  mob  that 
had  fastened  upon  it ;  the  red  flag  of  revolution  appeared 
in  the  streets  of  Paris  ;  and  the  bloody  uprising  of  June  23, 
1848,  filled  the  unruly  city  with  blood. 

Then  Louis  Napoleon  Bonaparte  appeared  upon  the 
scene.  Even  as  the  uncle  had  brought  security  out  of 
chaos,  he,  the  nephew,  would  redeem  France ! 

At  least,  that  is  what  he  said. 

He  came  over  from  London  where  he  had  been  li\ine:  in 
exile,  and  where  he  was  serving  as  a  special  policeman 
against  the  Chartist  rioters.  In  June,  1848,  he  was  elected 
to  the  National  Assembly  from  one  of  the  Paris  districts, 
and  in  September  he  took  his  seat. 


190     THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

"  My  name,"  he  said,  "is  the  symbol  of  order,  nationahty, 
and  glory." 

So  France,  too,  believed.  Terrified  by  the  fear  of  a  new 
Revolution,  the  middle  classes  —  the  real  strength  of 
France  —  saw  in  a  Bonaparte  the  organizer  of  order,  the 
safety  of  the  state  ;  and  when,  in  December,  1848,  a  presi- 
dent of  the  Republic  for  four  years  was  to  be  chosen. 
Prince  Louis  Napoleon  Bonaparte  adventurer,  politician, 
and  plotter,  was  elected  by  a  popular  vote  of  over  five  mil- 
lions, and  proclaimed  President  of  the  French  Republic 
"  one  and  indivisible,"  to  which  he  swore  to  remain  faithful, 
and  to  fulfil  all  the  duties  imposed  upon  him  by  the  Con- 
stitution. 

A  Napoleon  Bonaparte  once  again  guided  the  affairs  of 
France  —  was  he  to  be  Napoleon  the  Great  —  or  the 
Little  ? 

"The  toadstool,"  wrote  Victor  Hugo,  "sprouts  up  at 
the  foot  of  the  oak  ;  but  it  is  not  the  oak  !  " 

Meantime,  in  Hungary,  a  real  patriot  had  come  to  the 
front ;  another  Louis  —  Kossuth  —  assumed  leadership  "  by 
the  will  of  the  people."  For  more  than  fifty  years  had  the 
independence  of  Hungary  not  only  been  promised  but  guar- 
anteed by  the  Austrian  kings  ;  this  independence  had  never 
been  established.  Through  good  and  ill  they  stood  loyal  to 
Austria,  and  when,  in  1806,  Napoleon  I.  tried  to  draw  away 
the  Hungarians  from  their  Austrian  fealty,  the  tempted 
patriots  indignantly  refused  ;  but  independence,  or,  at  least, 
constitutional  freedom,  they  would  have.  For  this  the  wise 
Szechenyi  had  labored  peacefully  for  years  ;  failing  to  ob- 
tain it,  the  fiery  Kossuth  proposed  to  secure  it,  even  by 
force,  if  need  be. 


HOW  THE  WORLD   HAD   ANOTHER  SHAKING    UP.     IQI 

The  need  for  force  soon  came.  The  Emperor  Ferdi- 
nand promised  but  did  not  perform.  Encouraged  by  his 
secret  messengers,  the  non-Hungarian  provinces  refused  to 
join  the  Hungarian  uprising  and  clamored  for  separate 
rights.  Civil  war  threatened;  and  when,  in  July,  1848, 
Kossuth,  in  an  impassioned  speech  to  the  Hungarian  As- 
sembly, asked  for  money  and  an  army  to  defend  the  nation, 
rivals  became  brothers  and  patriots,  and  an  army  of  two 
hundred  thousand  men  was  raised  for  the  defence  and  in- 
dependence of  Hungary. 

"  You  have  risen  like  one  man,"  exclaimed  Kossuth, 
with  tears  in  his  eyes.  "  I  bow  before  the  greatness  of  the 
nation." 

For  a  time  the  nation,  indeed,  was  great,  alike  in  its 
efforts,  its  sacrifices,  its  patriotism,  and  its  successes. 
Under  the  able  leadership  of  Kossuth,  an  army  was  placed 
in  the  field  ;  the  Croatian  insurgents  were  defeated  ;  and 
when  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  declared  the  Hungarians 
rebels,  and  prepared  to  subdue  them,  the  Assembly  ans- 
wered by  the  defiance  of  revolution. 

But  just  then  Austria  itself  caught  the  French  revolu- 
tion fever  ;  and  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  abdicated  in  favor 
of  his  nephew  Francis  Joseph,  an  energetic  young  prince 
of  eighteen. 

Even  an  energetic  young  prince,  however,  was  not  equal 
to  a  united  nation  with  Kossuth  at  its  head.  When  Aus- 
tria refused  peace  or  independence,  the  war  of  the  Revo- 
lution began  with  spirit.  Success  followed  success ;  the 
Hungarian  general,  Gorgei,  drove  the  invading  Austrians 
from  the  kingdom  ;  and  when  Austria  begged  and  received 
the  help  of  Russia,  these  allies,  too,   were   defeated  and 


192      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

driven  out.  Thereupon  Hungary,  under  the  leadership  of 
Kossuth,  threw  off  the  Hapsburg  yoke,  and  on  the  four- 
teenth of  April,  1849,  declared  itself  a  free  and  indepen- 
dent nation. 

Kossuth  was  appointed  governor  ;  and  the  brave  defend- 
ers of  their  homeland,  whose  successes  had  alike  startled 
and  thrilled  the  world,  pledged  themselves  anew  to  main- 
tain the  liberties  of  Hungary.  The  whole  nation  sang  the 
Hungarian  Marseillaise  —  the  "  Up  !  Magyar  "  of  Petofi 
(Magyar  being  the  Hungarian's  home-name)  : 

"Up!    Magyar,  up  I    thy  country  calls," 

rang  this  trumpet-call  of  independence,  as  the  young  poet, 
who  it  has  been  said,  "  means  more  to  Hungary  than  did 
even  Burns  to  Scotland,"  urged  his  brothers  to  the  final 
struggle  with  tyranny,  even  to  the  death  : 

"  Where  every  fettered  race,  tired  with  their  chains, 
Muster  their  ranks  and  seek  the  battle  plains, 
And,  for  the  struggle.   Freedom's  flag  unfold, 
The  sacred  signal  there  inscribed  in  gold, — 

'  For  the  world's  liberty  : ' 
And,  far  and  wide,  the  summons  to  be  free 
Fills  East  and  West,  and  to  the  glorious  fight 
Heroes  press  forward,  battling  for  the  right,  — 

There  will  I  die  1 " 

Kossuth,  the  governor,  would  have  followed  up  the  Hun- 
garian victories  by  a  march  upon  Vienna,  there  to  force 
the  Austrians  to  terms  and  ward  off  the  Russian  invasion. 
But  Gorgei,  the  general,  fell  back  upon  the  capital  instead, 
for  better  concentration.  The  great  national  enthusiasm 
was  frittered  away  in  bickerings  and  jealousies,  as  has  too 


HOW  THE  WORLD  HAD  ANOTHER  SHAKING  UP.  1 93 

often  been  the  case  even  as  in  the  days  of  our  own  "  Conway 
Cabal,"  which  nearly  wrecked  the  efforts  of  Washington. 
Austria  and  Russia  combined  to  crush  out  Hungarian  lib- 
erty, and  invading  Hungary,  attacked  the  patriots  at  every 
available  point,  forced  Gorgei  to  surrender,  drove  Kossuth 
and  his  comrades  into  exile,  and  before  the  close  of  1849 
had  re-conquered  and  re-enslaved  the  kingdom. 

The  fate  of  Hungary  was  the  fate  of  all  other  attempted 
revolutions  of  that  time.  Lack  of  union  among  the  leaders 
and  jealousy  toward  the  efforts  of  rival  peoples,  held  back 
the  "  fettered  races  "  from  co-operation  and  support  ;  tax- 
payers grumbled  at  the  price  of  liberty  ;  conservative  men 
feared  the  excesses  of  the  people  ;  and  the  liberation  of 
Europe  was  "unavoidably  postponed." 

But  the  example  and  influence  of  Kossuth  did  not  die. 
His  heroic  endeavors  and  his  appeals  for  independence 
were  as  seeds  planted  in  a  stubborn  soil,  which  at  last  bore 
fruit  ;  and  though  a  new  Napoleon  betrayed  France,  and 
Hungary  lost  for  a  time  her  political  rights  ;  though  Italian 
unity  was  defeated,  and  German  and  Austrian  patriots  were 
shot,  exiled,  or  forced  into  flight,  —  the  dawn  of  constitu- 
tional freedom  came  yet  nearer  to  the  people  who  rose  to 
enforce  it,  and  1850  was  really  the  beginning  of  a  new  era, 
that  of  Cavour  and  nationality. 

Religion,  which  so  often  is  the  companion  and  sometimes 
the  forerunner  of  liberty,  was  in  those  closing  years  of  the 
half-century  making  progress  and  attempting  unity  in  the 
world.  In  1846  a  world'^s  convention  of  Protestant  Chris- 
tians was  held  in  London  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  re- 
ligious intercourse,  co-operation,  unity,  and  fellowship  among 
what  were  termed  Evangelical  Christians;  and  though  the 


194     THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

lines  were  closely  'and  sternly  drawn  against  liberalism, 
Romanism,  and  what  was  judged  to  be  infidelity,  the  attempt 
toward  a  more  positive  brotherhood  was  of  great  and  last- 
ing benefit,  and  the  religious  conditions  of  the  world  were 
materially  bettered,  consolidated,  and  advanced. 

But,  even  against  what  was  then  received  as  the  accepted 
"  Orthodoxy  "  of  the  Christian  world,  a  movement  which 
logically  belongs  to  this  same  "  era  of  revolution  "  was  be- 
gun. As  America  was  the  home  of  civil  and  political 
liberty,  so,  too,  as  was  its  right,  did  it  become  the  home  of 
religious  brotherhood  and  liberty.  As  Hosea  Ballou  stood 
for  the  first,  so  did  William  Ellery  Channing  stand  for  the 
second.  Channing  died  before  the  first  half  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  closed,  but  he  had  begun  the  work  that 
gradually  loosened  the  fetters  of  creed. 

"  Liberty,"  so  one  of  his  associates  and  successors  de- 
clared, "  is  the  key  of  his  religious,  his  political,  his  philan- 
thropic principles.  Free  the  slave,  free  the  serf,  free  the 
ignorant,  free  the  sinful.  Let  there  be  no  chains  upon  the 
conscience,  the  intellects,  the  pursuits,  or  the  persons  of 
men." 

The  world  was  not  yet  quite  ready  to  accept  this  vigor- 
ous doctrine ;  but,  along  different  lines,  men  were  working 
towards  it.  In  1847  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  the  American, 
aroused  intellectual  England  with  his  lectures  on  seven 
"Representative  Men;"  in  his  "English  Traits,"  published 
in  1850,  he  re-introduced  England  to  America;  while  his 
searching  work  as  essayist  and  poet  proclaimed,  as  has  well 
been  said,  "the  independence  of  American  thought." 

Thomas  Carlyle,  the  great  and  vigorous-minded  P^nglish- 
man,  whom  Emerson  greatly  helped  to  make  known  to  the 


HOW  THE   WORLD  HAD  ANOTHER   SHAKING   UP.     1 95 

world,  was,  as  1850  drew  near,  "  expressing  vital  truths," 
so  Leslie  Stephen  puts  it,  "with  surpassing  force."  His 
"Oliver  Cromwell,"  published  in  1845,  re-made  English 
history  ;  and  his  studies  of  the  needs  and  duty  of  mankind 
were  so  forcibly  presented,  that  the  world  to-day  willingly 
acknowledges  the  sway  of  his  "powerful  intellectual  stimu- 
lus." Herbert  Spencer,  the  deep  thinker,  was  formulating 
his  new  and  convincing  philosophy;  and  young  Charles 
Darwin,  sailing  to  strange  lands  in  the  Beagle,  was  stor- 
ing up  the  results  of  his  researches  into  life  and  growth, 
which  later  were  to  find  expression  in  a  theory  that  was  to 
startle,  antagonize,  and  finally  readjust  the  opinions  of  the 
world. 

The  revolution  in  political  and  intellectual  thought  that 
marked  this  especial  period,  extended  also  to  mechanical 
production.  As  intelligence  widens,  men  endeavor  to  free 
themselves  from  the  deadly  drudgery  of  labor,  believing  it 
to  be  better  for  themselves  and  the  world  to  be  able  to 
make  a  thousand  shingles  a  minute  in  a  Western  steam 
sawmill  than  to  expend  a  lifetime  making  lace  by  hand  in 
the  dark  cellars  of  Belgium. 

The  Jacquard  loom  and  Cartwright's  power-loom  which 
opened  the  Nineteenth  Century,  and  Arkwright's  spinning- 
frame  which  closed  the  eighteenth,  were  developed  almost 
out  of  the  recognition  of  their  inventors  before  the  half 
century  was  completed  ;  machinery  was  introduced  into 
every  branch  of  weaving  and  cloth-printing,  and  the  price 
of  manufactured  material  lessened  as  the  ease  of  production 
improved.  In  1846  Elias  Howe's  invention  of  the  sewing- 
machine  revolutionized  hand-sewing,  from  shoes  to  carpets, 
and  from  dresses  to  harnesses,  while  labor-saving  in  ma- 


196     THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

chinery  was  followed  by  pain-saving  in  sickness.  For  the 
discovery  of  ether  by  Dr.  Morton  of  Boston  in  1846,  and 
of  chloroform  by  Waldie  of  LiverjDool  in  1847,  did  actually, 
as  Mr.  Wallace  says,  "  rob  the  surgeon's  knife  of  its  terrors, 
and  make  it  possible  to  save  more  lives  by  surgery  than  by 
any  other  branch  of  medicine."  The  revolution  in  surgery 
and  the  saving  power  of  anaesthetics,  which  were  the  record 
of  the  years  between  1845  ^rid  1850,  can  scarcely  be  over- 
estimated or  really  understood  by  those  of  to-day  who  share 
the  blessings  of  this  life-saving  agent. 

So  into  all  departments  of  life  and  thought,  of  endeavor 
and  achievement,  of  government  and  action,  the  spirit  of 
new  methods  found  entrance  in  the  era  of  revolution  which 
closed  the  first  half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  ;  and  the 
people  of  the  world,  though  still  wanting  in  real  brother- 
hood, and  isolated  in  communities  and  conscience,  were, 
nevertheless,  coming  nearer  and  nearer  together,  as  through 
success  and  failure,  through  rivalries  and  conciliations, 
through  radicalism  and  conservatism,  they  struggled  up- 
ward toward  the  light  which  in  1850  burned  so  much  clearer, 
brighter,  and  stronger  than  in  1 800. 

It  was  James  Russell  Lowell,  a  prophetic  and  truth- 
loving  young  American  poet,  who  in  1845  sent  out  a  mes- 
sage and  a  plea  to  his  fellow-men  which  voiced  much  of 
this  strenuous  revolution  in  manners,  methods,  and 
morals :  — 


"  For  mankind  are  one  in  spirit  and  an  instinct  bears  along, 
Round  the  earth's  electric  circle,  the  swift  flash  of  right  or  wrong; 
Whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  yet  Humanity's  vast  frame 
Through  its  ocean-sundered  fibres  feels  the  gush  of  joy  or  shame;  — 
In  the  gain  or  loss  of  one  race,  all  the  rest  have  equal  claim. 


HOW  THE  WORLD  HAD  ANOTHER  SHAKING  Ul'.  1 97 

New  occasions  teach  new  duties;  Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth, 
They  must  upward  still  and  onward,  who  would  keep  abreast  of  Truth ; 
Lo !  before  us  gleam  her  camp-fires  1  We  ourselves  must  Pilgrims  be  ; 
Launch  our  Mayflower  and  steer  boldly  through  the  desperate  winter 

sea, 
Nor  attempt  the  Future's  portal  with  the   Past's  blood-rusted  key." 


"  The  regenerator  of  Italy,  and  one 
of  the  greatest  of  modern  statesmen, 
Cavour  led  the  way  in  two  of  the 
tnost  salutary  re7>olutions  that  have 
taken  place  in  t/ie  history  of  t/ie 
world,  and  deserves  to  be  gratefully 
remembered  not  only  as  a  true  patriot, 
but  as  one  of  the  benefactors  of  man- 
kind." 

Thomas  Kirkup. 


THE   AGE    OF   C A  FOUR. 

Nationality. 
{1850-1860.) 


COUNT  DI   CAl^OUK 

{Cami/lo  Benso), 

REGENERATOR  OF  ITALY, 
Born  Turin,  Italy,  August  10,  iSro, 
Died  Turin,  Italy,  June  6,  1801. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

ON    THE    PORTAL    OF    THE    FUTURE, 
{From  rSjo  to  /8jj.) 

"  T^HE  portal  of  the  Future,"  as  we  know  it,  may  well 

1  be  placed  at  the  year  1850.  A  half-century  of 
endeavor  had  opened  up  new  fields  of  effort  and  achieve- 
ment, into  which  the  earnest  workers  of  the  world  were 
passing  through  the  open  door  of  opportunity. 

Commercial  activity  and  gold-getting  are  as  foremost  in 
the  vanguard  of  progress  as  philanthropy  and  brotherly 
love ;  war  has  been  as  great  a  world-developer  as  peace ; 
and  conquest  has  borne  improvement  in  its  train,  even 
though  booty  and  blood  made  selfishness  more  odious  and 
greed  more  brutal.  We  cannot  always  divorce  pain  from 
progress. 

Fifty  years  had  made  a  notable  change  in  the  history 
and  environment  of  mankind.  The  warring  elements  were 
still  unloosed,  and  the  millennium  seemed  as  far  away  as 
ever  ;  but  "  the  cross  that  turns  not  back  "  had  gone 
steadily  forward,  and  ChristiaJnity,  the  pronounced  foe  to 
isolation,  was  still,  as  in  the  early  day,  "a  light  to  lighten 
the  Gentiles,"  as  new  spheres  of  energy  lay  open  to  the 
hands  and  feet  of  men. 

The  discovery  of  gold  in  California  in  1848,  and  the 
greedy  rush  that  followed  that  epoch-making  event,  were 
mighty  factors  in  the  development  and  diffusion  of  Western 


203      THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

civilization.  By  1850  one  hundred  thousand  men  had 
found  their  way  by  the  route  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  or 
across  the  plains  into  that  exaggerated  El  Dorado ;  and  the 
territorial  limit  of  population  was  so  exceeded  that  on  the 
ninth  of  September,  1850,  California  was  admitted  to 
the  Union,  —  the  thirty-first  State  to  be  made  from  the 
great  area  into  which,  in  less  than  sixty  years,  the  American 
republic  had  expanded. 

In  India,  British  possession  stretched  from  the  Coro- 
mandel  Coast  to  the  Himalayas  ;  and  the  queen  of  England 
ruled,  by  governors  and  viceroys,  over  an  area  equal  in 
extent  to  all  of  Europe  and  a  population  of  more  than  one 
hundred  and  ninety  million  subjects. 

England  now  had  colonial  possessions  in  every  part  of 
the  globe.  In  Europe,  in  North  and  South  America,  in 
Africa,  Asia,  Australasia,  and  Oceanica,  she  ruled  over 
possessions  covering  eight  milhon  square  miles  and  two 
hundred  and  fifty  million  inhabitants.  France,  Spain,  Por- 
tugal, Holland,  Denmark,  and  Sweden,  also  had  colonial 
possessions,  but  their  combined  possessions,  alike  in  area 
and  population,  amounted  to  less  than  one-fourth  of  the 
immense  holdings  of  Great  Britain,  which,  in  1850,  covered 
one-sixth  of  the  land  surface  of  the  globe,  and  included 
one-sixth  of  the  inhabitants  of  Earth. 

In  this  list  of  foreign  land-holders  Germany  and  the 
United  States,  Russia,  Austria,  and  Italy,  of  the  great 
powers  of  the  world  were  missing.  But  in  1850  Germany 
was  not  yet  really  Germany  ;  it  was  a  loosely  joined  and  irre- 
sponsible bunch  of  kingdoms  and  principalities  and  duchies, 
of  which  Prussia  was  the  largest  and  most  influential  ; 
but  the  princes  and  powers  of  Germany  had  enough  to  do 


ON   THE   PORTAL   OF   THE   FUTURE.  203 

to  evolve  out  of  their  huniiliati(jn  at  the  hands  of  Napoleon 
the  wonderful  path  to  power  and  nationality  which  was  yet 
before  them.  Indeed,  in  the  struggle  for  recognition,  even 
Prussia  in  1850  was  but  second  best  ;  for  the  Deutscher 
Bund,  or  Germanic  Confederation  of  the  forty-seven  Ger- 
man independent  states  that  had  once  comprised  the  "  Holy 
Roman  Empire  "  destroyed  by  Napoleon,  had  made  an 
Austrian  rather  than  a  German  prince  its  head  or  regent. 
So  Germany  had  neither  time  nor  desire  for  foreign  colo- 
nization; Austria  had  all  it  could  attend  to  in  keeping  in- 
tact the  military  colonies  established  on  her  eastern  borders 
as  "  buffers  "  to  Russia  and  Turkey  ;  Russia  had  her  hands 
full  with  Siberia  and  her  Asiatic  boundaries ;  and  Italy,  torn 
by  political  and  papal  feuds,  and  unsuccessful  in  the  Revo- 
lution of  1848,  was  virtually  disunited  —  a  fief  of  Austria 
and  the  Pope  of  Rome,  save  where,  in  the  fair  regions  about 
the  Lake  of  Geneva,  he  who  was  Duke  of  Savoy  and  King 
of  Sardinia  waited  the  hour  when  he  could  strike  once 
again  for  the  liberation  of  Italy. 

As  for  the  United  States,  that  constantly  expanding 
Republic  had  more  than  enough  territory  of  its  own  on 
hand  to  occupy  itself  at  home  without  reaching  out  for 
"foreign"  possessions.  True,  she  had.  in  18 16,  evinced  a 
desire  to  occupy  the  island  of  Lampedusa,  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean, said  to  be  the  original  of  Shakspere's  island  in 
"  The  Tempest,"  in  order  to  gain  a  foothold  in  Europe ; 
but  American  statesmen  saw  the  wisdom  of  Napoleon's 
criticism. 

"What  fools  those  Americans  are!"  said  the  exiled 
conqueror  at  Saint  Helena.  "They,  who  can  do  what 
they  please  in  one  half  of  the  globe,  why  should  they  wish 


204      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

to  hold  a  worthless  little  island  which  will  certainly  em- 
broil them  with  the  European  powers," 

So,  returning  to  Washington's  farewell  advice,  the  Re- 
public occupied  itself  with  its  own  vast  domain,  and  colon- 
ized itself  at  home.  For  the  method  in  which  the  United 
States  provided  for  the  "  continuous  western  advance  of 
new  settlements,"  was,  in  itself,  a  pronounced  system  of 
colonization,  —  a  logical  fulfilment  of  that  "unexampled 
energy  and  capacity  for  colonization "  which  has  ever 
marked  the  development  of  the  English-speaking  race. 

But  while  the  English-speaking  race  was  cementing  its 
nationalities  a  new  era,  inspired  by  this  same  desire  for 
nationahty  came,  in  1850,  to  the  other  nations  of  the 
world.  Germany,  where,  as  Balzac  observes,  "everything 
goes  slowly  and  gravely,"  was,  in  spite  of  Austrian  pre- 
dominance, cautiously  feeling  her  way  toward  this  inevi- 
table fact.  In  1850  the  "League  of  the  Three  Kings," 
consisting  of  Prussia,  Saxony,  and  Hanover,  determined  to 
act  independently  of  Austria,  and  called  together  a  national 
parliament  at  Erfurt.  Thereupon  Austria  protested,  and, 
seeking  the  further  humiliation  of  Prussia,  proposed  to  the 
rulers  of  Saxony,  Wiirtemberg,  Bavaria,  and  Hanover,  the 
"  League  of  the  Four  Kings,"  which  should  "  crowd  out  " 
Prussia,  and  continue  Austria  in  the  ascendency.  Austria 
won  the  day,  but  it  was  only  a  temporary  victory  ;  for,  out 
of  the  slow  work  of  conference  and  diet,  the  stronger  spirit 
of  that  nationality  was  born,  which,  in  time,  consolidated 
Germany,  and  made  her  the  mighty  power  in  Europe  that 
she  is  to-day. 

It  was  in  enslaved  and  divided  Italy,  however,  that  the 
spirit  of  nationality  was  first  to  display  itself  in  Continental 


ON   THE   PORTAL   OF   THE   FUTURE.  205 

Europe.  There,  at  Turin,  in  the  little  court  of  young 
Victor  Emmanuel,  king  of  Sardinia  and  Savoy,  an  energetic 
man  of  forty  was  offered  and  accepted  a  position  in  the 
king's  cabinet.  His  name  was  Camillo  Benso  di  Cavour. 
With  his  entrance  upon  the  field  of  Italian  politics  a  new 
era  for  Italy,  and,  indeed,  for  the  world,  was  opened,  and 
the  age  of  Cavour,  of  union  and  nationality,  began.  Under 
his  cautious  but  statesman-like  lead  the  kingdom  of  Sardinia 
rose  to  a  foremost  place  among  the  states  of  Italy  ;  and 
when,  in  1852,  he  became  prime  minister  of  Sardinia,  he 
became  also  virtual  ruler  of  his  country,  and  slowly  but 
surely  paved  the  way  for  the  regeneration  of  Italy  and  the 
nationality  of  that  race  which,  in  the  "  brave  days  of  old," 
had  made  Rome  mistress  of  the  world. 

But  the  days  of  1850  were  not  those  of  old  Rome. 
Races  were  consolidating  instead  of  being  conquered,  and 
whoever  tried  to  be  master  or  mistress  could  neither  play 
the  part  of  Caesar   nor  fill    the  role  of    imperial   Rome. 

True,  there  were  those  who  tried  it  ;  but  the  Nineteenth 
Century  knew  but  one  Napoleon  —  and  him  it  overthrew 
and  cast  aside. 

In  France,  however,  the  "nephew  of  his  uncle"  essayed 
this  dangerous  act;  the  "toadstool"  of  Victor  Hugo's 
simile  essayed  to  play  the  part  of  the  oak ;  the  "  prince- 
president  of  France,"  as  his  Corsican  uncle  before  him  had 
been,  strove  first  for  the  throne  of  France,  and  then  for 
the  dictatorship  of  Europe  and  the  world ;  and  while  the 
world  watched  anxiously,  and  patriots  were  divided  be- 
tween hope  and  fear,  the  ancient  fable  of  the  ox  and  the 
frog  told  by  wise  old  Aesop  was  once  again  displa}ed  to 
the  world  —  to  end  even  as  did  Aesop's  fable. 


2o6     THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

In  December,  1848,  Louis  Napoleon  Bonaparte  was 
elected  president  of  France  for  four  years. 

"Those  who  accuse  me  of  ambition,"  he  declared,  "little 
know  my  heart." 

In  December,  185 1,  three  years  from  the  day  when  he 
had  sworn  to  support  and  defend  the  republic,  Louis  Napo- 
leon Bonaparte  flung  aside  the  constitution  he  was  pledged 
to  obey,  and  by  that  favorite  act  of  a  despot  known  as  a 
coup  d'etat  —  or  stroke  of  state  —  with  the  army  at  his 
back,  overthrew  the  government,  trampled  on  the  con- 
stitution, and  demanded  of  the  French  people  his  election 
as  prince-president  for  ten  years.  And  the  French  people, 
terrorized  into  obedience,  elected  him  ! 

"I  will  remain  chained  to  the  wheel,"  Louis  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  grandiloquently  announced,  "  if  I  cannot  prevent 
the  ship  from  drifting  to  destruction." 

Paris  rose  in  revolt ;  but  the  bayonets  of  the  army 
bloodily  quelled  the  insurrection,  and  one  year  later,  on 
the  eighth  of  December,  1852,  the  Senate  of  France  re- 
stored the  Empire,  and  declared  the  prince-president  heredi- 
tary Emperor  of  France  under  the  title  of  Napoleon  III. 

The  toadstool  had  shot  up  wondrously ;  the  frog  was 
swelling  to  great  proportions  ! 

"Liberty,"  said  the  new  Emperor,  "never  helped  to 
make  a  durable  political  edifice  ;  it  can  only  crown  a  political 
edifice  which  time  has  consolidated." 

And  thus  he  proposed  to  consolidate  ! 

But,  though  thus  "  railroaded  "  into  the  supreme  control, 
all  France  did  not  agree  to  this  "act  of  the  people  ;"  and 
thoughtful  men  the  world  over  scarcely  echoed  the  fervid 
words  of  that  over-wrought  English  poet,  Elizabeth  Barrett 


ON   THE    PORTAL   OF   THE    FUTURE.  20/ 

Browning,   who  thought    she  saw  in    this  new   Napoleon 
another  deliverer  of  Italy  : 

"  Emperor,  emperor  I 
From  the  centre  to  the  shore, 
From  the  Seine  back  to  the  Rhine, 
Stood  eight  millions  up  and  swore 
By  their  manhood's  right  divine 

So  to  elect  and  legislate 
This  man  should  renew  the  line 
Broken  in  a  strain  of  fate 
And  leagued  kings  at  Waterloo 
When  the  people's  hands  let  go ; 

Emperor 

Evermore." 

In  equally  fervid  language,  however,  did  Victor  Hugo, 
the  overwrought  patriot,  protest. 

"What!"  he  exclaimed;  "is  it  this  Bonaparte  who  has 
consummated  this  disaster  ?  Is  it  in  the  centre  of  the 
greatest  people  of  the  world,  in  the  middle  of  the  greatest 
century  of  history,  that  this  man  has  arisen  and  triumphed  ? 
.  .  .  What  the  lion  would  not  have  dared,  the  ape  has 
done !  What  the  eagle  would  have  feared  to  seize  in  his 
talons  the  parrot  has  clutched  in  its  claws !  —  In  one 
single  day,  between  the  dark  and  the  dawn,  the  absurd  has 
become  possible  ;  axioms  have  become  chimeras,  and  every- 
thing that  was  a  lie  has  become  a  living  fact  .  .  .  God 
was  marching  onward  ;  and  Louis  Bonaparte,  with  plume 
on  head,  threw  himself  across  the  path  and  said  to  God 
'Thou  shalt  go  no  farther  ! '    And  God  has  stopped." 

"  But  do  you  imagine  that  this  is  so  .-* "  he  concluded. 
...  "  You  do  not  hear,  in  the  shadow  beyond,  that  muf- 
fled sound  !     You  do  not  hear  some  one  moving  backward 


208      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

and  forward  !  You  do  not  see  that  the  breathing  of  that 
which  is  behind  makes  the  canvas  tremble  !  " 

And  time  proved  that  the  patriot  was  more  of  a  prophet 
than  the  poet. 

But,  before  that  bitter  day,  the  poet's  dream  was  first  to 
come  true,  when  the  Emperor  Napoleon  posed  as  the  de- 
liverer of  Italy. 

"  When  a  deed  is  done  for  freedom,"  as  Lowell  says, 
that  deed  is  really  an  expression  of  advancing  thought. 
Politics  and  patriotism  were  not  the  only  factors  in  the 
triumph  of  nationality.  The  explorer  and  the  reformer 
helped  on  in  the  development  equally  with  the  statesman 
and  the  soldier. 

In  1850  the  explorer  was  abroad;  the  reformer  was 
pressing  for  action.  Sir  John  Franklin,  the  Englishman, 
hunting  for  that  baffling  Northwest  Passage,  had  for  five 
years  been  lost  in  Arctic  ice  ;  and  Captain  Robert  McClure, 
the  Irishman,  searching  for  the  lost  Sir  John,  discovered, 
on  October  26,  1850,  from  the  heights  of  Point  Russell,  a 
(if  not  the)  northwest  passage,  by  which  one  might  go  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  But  Sir  John  Franklin  and 
his  daring  comrades  were  never  found  alive.  In  1849 
David  Livingstone,  the  intrepid  missionary,  bearing  alike 
the  cross  and  the  medicine-chest,  penetrated  into  the  un- 
known regions  of  South  Africa,  and  discovered  the  lakes 
which  are  the  central  drainage-point  of  that  still  disputed 
part  of  the  "dark  continent." 

Livingstone's  brothers  of  the  cross  were  also  enlarging 
the  field  of  missionary  endeavor,  and,  notwithstanding  sec- 
tarian differences  and  denominational  jealousies,  were  doing 
yoeman  service  for  civilization  and  progress.     Undeterred 


ON   THE    PORTAL   OF   THE    FUTURE.  209 

by  privation  or  hardship,  faithful  even  in  the  face  of  death, 
the  true  men  and  women  who  in  the  mid-years  of  the  cen- 
tury were  going  up  and  down  the  world  in  the  cause  of 
Christian  civilization,  even  though  often  mistaken  in 
methods,  tactless  in  action,  and  hampered  by  unworthy 
associates,  were  alike  world-redeeming  and  epoch-making 
pioneers  of  progress ;  and,  as  Dr.  Maclear  well  says,  "  the 
reflex  influence  of  their  lives  and  self-denial  has  told  upon 
the  church  at  home,  while,  apart  from  their  influence,  the 
entire  history  of  important  portions  of  the  world's  surface 
would  have  been  altered." 

The  efforts  of  these  agents  of  progress  were  needed  ; 
for  other  agents  were  also  progressing  along  more  sordid 
and  selfish  Hnes.  All  the  civilized  nations,  so-called,  were 
knocking  at  the  door  of  the  "  uncivilized,"  seeking,  de- 
manding, and  often  forcing  an  entrance,  in  the  interest  of 
trade  and  profit. 

Already  had  England  secured  a  foothold  upon  the  long- 
forbidden  land  of  China.  Hong  Kong  was  a  regularly 
ceded  and  occupied  English  possession  ;  Canton,  Amoy, 
Foochow,  Ningpo,  and  Shanghai  were,  by  treaty,  opened 
to  British  trade  and  British  consuls.  France  and  the 
United  States  also  secured  admittance  into  certain  ports, 
and,  gradually,  missionaries  and  merchants  found  entrance 
into  the  "  Flowery  Kingdom." 

But  in  1850  the  Emperor  Taou-Kwang,  who  was  lib- 
eral in  his  views,  and  favored  the  better  acquaintance  of 
the  West  and  the  East,  died  ;  his  son,  who  succeeded, 
him,  was  rash,  narrow-minded,  and  dissolute,  and  hated 
Europeans  ("Western  devils,"  as  he  called  them)  quite 
as  heartily  as  he    loved   to    oppress    his  people.     There- 


2IO     THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

upon  the  people  rebelled,  and,  even  as  their  Western 
brothers  had  done,  demanded  relief.  In  August,  1850, 
this  discontent  broke  into  open  insurrection  ;  and  a 
wedge  of  southern  provinces  of  the  empire,  uniting,  under 
a  self-raised  leader  of  great  ability,  Hung-sew-tseuen  by- 
name, changed  insurrection  to  rebellion,  and  threatened  the 
existence  of  the  long-established  Tartar  dynasty. 

Hung-sew's  followers  termed  themselves  tai-pings,  or 
"princes  of  peace  ;"  and  their  leader,  having  acquired  a 
smattering  of  Christian  teaching,  promulgated  a  sort  of 
spurious  Christianity,  and  declared  himself  a  heavenly  mes- 
senger, sent  for  the  regeneration  of  China.  The  people 
flocked  to  his  standard  ;  almost  all  of  Eastern  China  fell 
before  his  victorious  advance  ;  and  in  1852,  in  the  captured 
city  of  Nanking,  the  Tai-ping  chief  declared  himself  Em- 
peror of  China,  under  the  title  of  Teen-wang  —  the  heav- 
enly king.  Thus  did  the  half-understood  teachings  of 
Christian  missionaries,  and  the  crude  demands  of  the 
people  for  independence,  learned  from  foreign  contact, 
well-nigh  overturn  the  great  conservative  empire.  For 
fourteen  years  the  Tai-ping  rebellion  continued,  and  its 
results  did  much  to  bring  about  the  threatened  "break 
up"  in  China  at  the  end  of  the  century. 

In  1853  Commodore  Matthew  Calbraith  Perry,  a  vet- 
eran of  the  naval  war  of  1812,  with  an  American  squadron 
opened  the  doors  of  Japan  to  civilization  and  progress. 
For  centuries  that  secluded  island  empire  had  held  the 
world  at  bay,  refusing  alike  trade  and  communication  to 
Europe  and  America.  But  America  believed  that  the 
time  had  arrived  to  enforce  some  recognition  of  com- 
mercial and  international  rights  ;  and  Commodore   Perry, 


ON   THE    PORTAL   OF   THE    FUTURE,  211 

armed  with  a  letter  from  the  president  of  the  United 
States,  conducted  himself  in  so  friendly  and  diplomatic  a 
manner  that  the  barriers  of  Japanese  exclusiveness  were 
fairly  broken  down,  and  a  treaty  of  commercial  alliance  was' 
concluded  between  the  empire  of  Japan  and  the  republic  of 
the  United  States. 

Thus,  in  their  several  ways,  did  the  Anglo-Saxon  race 
open  the  doors  of  the  Orient,  and,  in  the  mid-years  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  bring  about  the  neighborlincss  of  the 
world. 

But  neighbors  are  not  always  friendly,  and,  even  in 
families,  dissensions  and  differences  appear. 

In  the  year  1852  three  great  men  died,  —  WelUngton, 
the  conqueror  of  Napoleon,  and  Webster  and  Clay,  the 
mighty  "  Unionists  "  of  America.  Their  deaths  ushered 
in  a  new  dispensation.  In  England,  indeed  in  all  Europe, 
militarism,  of  which  Wellington  had  been  the  chief  expo- 
nent, gave  place  to  popular  government,  and  in  America 
concession  yielded  to  the  demand  for  a  surer  nationality. 

"  His  voice  is  silent  in  your  council-hall 
Forever," 

wrote  Tennyson,  in  his  magnificent    ode  on  the  death  of 
the  Great  Duke, 

"  Yet,  remember,  all, 
He  spoke  among  you,  and  the  Man  who  spoke ; 
Who  never  sold  the  truth,  to  serve  the  hour, 
Nor  paltered  with  Eternal  God  for  power; 
Who  let  the  turbid  streams  of  rumor  flow 
Through  either  babbling  world  of  high  or  low; 
Whose  life  was  work,  whose  language  rife 
With  rugged  maxims  hewn  from  life; 
Who  never  spoke  against  a  foe  ; 


212      THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

Whose  eighty  winters  freeze  with  one  rebuke 
All  great  self-seekers  trampling  on  the  right ; 
Truth-teller  was  our  England's  Alfred  named; 
Truth-lover  was  our  Enghsh  Duke ; 
Whatever  record  leaps  to  light 
He  never  shall  be  shamed." 


And  in  America,  where,  in  1852,  Henry  Clay,  "the  great 
pacificator,"  and  Daniel  Webster,  the  "expounder  of  the 
Constitution,"  dropped  from  their  exalted  places  in  the 
ranks  of  the  living,  their  efforts  and  services  for  the  Union 
they  so  passionately  loved  are  remembered  by  the  republic 
for  whose  integrity  they  labored,  and  they  are  accorded 
foremost  places  in  the  rank  of  historic  Americans. 

"  We  may  put  aside,"  said  (even  as  I  write  this  chapter 
in  my  "  story  ")  the  junior  senator  from  the  great  State 
which  Daniel  Webster  so  nobly  represented  in  his  migh- 
tiest days,  —  "  we  may  put  aside  all  his  other  achievements, 
all  his  other  claims  to  remembrance,  and  inscribe  alone 
upon  the  base  of  his  statue  the  words  uttered  in  the  Sen- 
ate, '  Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and  insepa- 
rable.' ...  No  other  words  are  wanted  for  a  man  who  so 
ably  represented  and  so  expressed  the  faith  and  hopes  of 
a  nation." 

But,  with  the  deaths  of  Clay  and  Webster,  the  dissen- 
sions in  the  American  family,  no  longer  to  be  checked  by 
pacificator  or  orator,  waxed  hotter  as  the  conscience  of  the 
North  and  the  necessities  of  the  South  were  drawn  into 
insistent  antagonism. 

Henry  Clay's  last  act  of  pacification  was  the  Compro- 
mise of  1850,  which,  so  people  hoped,  by  a  little  giving  up 
on  either  side  and  a  little  supposed  benefit  to  both  sides, 


ON   THE    PORTAL   OF   THE    FUTURE.  213 

would  bring  within  the  borders  of  the  republic  peace  and 
good  will  to  men. 

But  one  of  those  concessions  to  the  South  was  the  hate- 
ful Fugitive  Slave  Law.  The  North  was  justly  indignant 
at  this  most  un-American  invasion  of  its  rights  and  liberties  ; 
on  the  other  hand,  the  South,  committed  to  slavery,  with  its 
money  invested  in  this  human  property  and  dependent  upon 
maintaining  it,  could  see  only  injustice,  bigotry,  and  un- 
friendliness in  the  growing  annimosity  of  the  North. 

In  the  very  year  that  Henry  Clay  died,  in  1852,  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe  published  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."  That 
remarkable  and  timely  book  lifted  the  slavery  crusade  out 
from  the  little  company  of  Abolitionist  agitators,  and  made 
it  a  world-stirring  question  of  humanity  and  philanthropy  ; 
"beyond  any  other  single  influence,"  says  Mr.  Merriam, 
"it  planted  in  the  men  and  women  of  the  North  a  deep  and 
passionate  hostility  to  human  slavery." 

The  influence  of  this  book  upon  the  times,  as  Professor 
Bates  says,  "can  hardly  be  estimated."  It  touched  not 
only  the  land  of  its  birth,  it  went  to  every  land  ;  ten  thou- 
sand copies  a  day  were  sold  in  London  ;  it  was  translated 
into  twenty-five  languages  and  tongues,  and  is  still,  to-day, 
the  most  widely-read  novel  in  the  English  language,  even 
though  the  age  it  helped  to  create  has  long  since  passed, 
and  the  style  of  its  telling  has  been  superseded  by  better 
literary  art. 

Literature,  indeed,  in  the  opening  "  fifties  "  was  making 
an  imperishable  mark  upon  the  world.  In  1850  Alfred 
Tennyson  published  "  In  Memoriam,"  of  which  Dr.  Van 
Dyke  declares  that  "  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  '  In 
Memoriam  '  stands  out,  in  present  vision,  as  the  most  illus- 


214      THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

trious  poem  of  the  century.  Certainly,  he  adds,  "it  has 
been  the  most  frequently  translated,  the  most  widely 
quoted,  and  the  most  deeply  loved." 

To  us,  who  read  the  steadily  progressing  story  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  with  all  its  strivings  toward  higher 
endeavor  and  loftier  achievement,  this  "  English  classic  on 
the  love  of  immortahty  and  the  immortality  of  love,"  as  it 
has  so  well  been  described,  contains  an  even  nobler  note  of 
progress  and  performance  as  the  poet  heard  the  New  Year 
chimes  that,  from  an  English  church  tower,  "  rang  in  "  the 
year  1850,  —  the  close  of  our  half-century,  the  opening  of 
a  new  and  still  more  glorious  half.  Take  down  your  "Ten- 
nyson," and  turning  to  the  one  hundred  and  fifth  section 
of  "  In  Memorian  "  read  again  those  noble  verses,  fitting 
accompaniment  for  the  vigil  of  every  one  who  in  hope  and 
trust  and  faith  "sees  the  New  Year  in." 

"  Ring  out  a  slowly  dying  cause 

And  ancient  forms  of  party  strife; 
Ring  in  the  nobler  modes  of  life 
With  sweeter  manners,  purer  laws. 

Ring  out  old  shapes  of  foul  disease; 

Ring  out  the  narrowing  lust  of  gold; 

Ring  out  the  thousand  wars  of  old, 
Ring  in  the  thousand  years  of  peace." 

There  was  need  for  that  New  Year  wish  in  1850.  The 
old  cause  of  tyranny  was  indeed  slowly  dying;  the  "sweeter 
manners,"  however,  were  as  slow  in  coming.  But  science 
and  invention  were  grappling  with  the  "  old  shapes  of  foul 
disease,"  even  while  the  "  narrowing  lust  of  gold "  was 
seeking  out  the  newly  occupied  quarters  of  the  globe,  and 
the  "  thousand  years  of  peace  "  seemed  scarcely  yet  ready 
to  begin. 


ON   THE    PORTAL   OF   THE    FUTURE.  21$ 

But  the  "  neighborliness  of  the  world  "  of  which  I  have 
spoken  was  already  beginning  to  display  itself.  In  1851 
there  was  opened  in  London,  or  rather  in  what  was  then 
its  "marvellous  Crystal  Palace,"  the  International  Exhibi- 
tion of  185  I.  "  Not  merely  national  in  its  scope  and  bene- 
fits," so  said  Prince  Albert,  the  truly  "princely"  husband 
of  Queen  Victoria,  "  but  comprehensive  of  the  whole 
world." 

There  had  been  Industrial  Exhibitions  before  that  half- 
century  year.  The  French  had  inaugurated  the  idea,  and 
had,  before  185 1,  held  at  least  eleven  such  expositions, 
between  1798  and  1849.  But  these  were  national  rather 
than  international.  The  exhibition  of  1851  was  the  first 
to  bring  together  in  the  peaceful  rivalry  of  "show"  the 
products  and  manufactures  of  the  world. 

A  great  building  of  glass  and  iron  —  hence  called  the 
"Crystal  Palace  "  —  was  erected  in  Hyde  Park,  two  miles 
from  the  heart  of  the  city  ;  eighteen  acres  were  set  aside 
for  the  display ;  and  the  exhibition  building,  covering  a  space 
of  a  million  square  feet,  was  divided  into  four  great  depart- 
ments—  raw  material,  machinery,  manufactures,  and  fine 
arts.  One-half  of  the  space  was  given  to  England  and  her 
colonies,  and  one-half  to  foreign  countries.  The  value  of 
the  goods  exhibited  exceeded  eight  million  dollars  ;  and  the 
famous  exhibition  was  opened  by  Queen  Victoria  on  the 
first  of  May,  185 1,  closing  on  the  eleventh  of  October  of 
the  same  year.  It  was  a  noble  enterprise  ;  and  its  success 
led  to  similar  attempts  by  other  great  nations  of  the  world, 
notably  France,  Austria,  and  the  United  States,  gradually 
growing  in  extent,  magnificence,  and  value,  as  a  commer- 
cial and  peaceful  educator,  until  they  culminated  in  the 


2l6     THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

great  Paris  Exhibition  of  1900,  which  came  as  the  fitting 
consummation  of  the  genius,  progress,  and  achievement  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century. 

But  the  friendly  rivalries  of  production  did  not  soften 
the  sterner  rivalries  of  power.  In  Eastern  Europe  an 
"inevitable  conflict"  was  preparing,  where  Turkey,  the 
"  sick  man  of  the  East,"  obstructed  the  pathway  of 
Russian  expansion. 

For  centuries  Russia  had  looked  forward  to  the  posses- 
sion of  Constantinople  and  the  sea-coast  of  Turkey  ;  noth- 
ing but  the  jealous  watchfulness  of  Western  Europe  has 
prevented  this  absorption  of  a  ruined  and  wasted  portion  of 
one  of  the  earth's  fairest  regions  ;  the  "balance  of  power  " 
—  that  vague  and  useless  principle  of  European  arrange- 
ment, to  which  England  was  so  long  pledged,  and  for  which 
it  has  so  often  fought  —  decreed  that  a  weak  power  rather 
than  a  strong  one  should  control  the  eastern  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean  ;  and  Turkey  was  maintained  in  her  "  lordly 
heritage,"  which,  by  neglect,  despotism,  and  brutality,  she 
reduced  to  stagnation  and  decay  —  a  Nineteenth  Century 
anomaly.  The  position  of  Turkey  in  this  age  of  progress 
is  one  of  the  few  remaining  relics  of  that  age  of  Militarism, 
fitly  dominated  by  Wellington,  the  soldier,  who  stoutly 
maintained  that  Turkey  must  be  kept  as  a  weak  and 
"  assisted  "  nation  in  order  to  sustain  the  balance  of  power 
in  Europe. 

Into  this  condition  of  affairs  came  the  new  Emperor  of 
France — the  third  Napoleon,  sometimes  called  the  Little. 
He  declared  that  the  Roman  Catholic  pilgrims  to  the  birth- 
place of  Christ  should  have  a  key  to  the  chief  door  of  the 
church  of  Bethlehem  just  as   the  Greek   Christians  had. 


ON   THE    PORTAL  OF   THE    FUTURE.  217 

Now,  Bethlehem,  as  did  all  Palestine,  belonged  to  the 
Sultan  of  Turkey  ;  the  Emperor  of  Russia  was  a  Greek 
Christian  ;  but  when  Napoleon  insisted  on  what  he  termed 
the  rights  of  his  church,  the  Sultan,  sorely  pressed,  said  he 
should  have  the  key.  In  February,  1853,  the  key  was 
given,  whereupon  the  Czar  Nicholas  said  the  rights  of  the 
Greek  Church  had  been  invaded,  and  insisted  that  the 
Christian  population  of  Turkey  should  be  placed  under  his 
guardianship  and  protection. 

This  would  have  been  giving  Russia  the  footing  she 
desired  in  Turkey.  The  Sultan  sought  the  advice  of  Eng- 
land, France,  Austria,  and  Prussia  ;  they  told  the  Turkish 
despot  to  tell  the  Russian  despot  to  mind  his  own  business. 
This  refusal  made  the  Czar  angry ;  and  he  at  once  marched 
an  army  —  not  into  Palestine,  but  into  the  Turkish  prov- 
inces along  the  Danube,  "  to  insure  the  restoration  of  our 
rights,"  that  is,  the  sole  possession  of  the  key  to  the  great 
front  door  of  the  Church  at  Bethlehem. 

Then  Turkey  declared  war  against  Russia.  England, 
fearful  lest  the  success  of  Russia  should  lead  to  the  occu- 
pation and  control  of  the  eastern  Mediterranean,  —  her 
way  to  India,  —  protested,  and  secretly  encouraged  Turkey. 
Napoleon,  welcoming  the  opportunity  to  prove  his  rights 
to  his  name,  and  to  avenge  the  disgrace  of  the  retreat 
from  Moscow,  openly  encouraged  the  Turks.  The  old- 
time  foemen  and  rivals,  England  and  France,  allied  them- 
selves to  save  Turkey  for  Europe ;  and  when,  in  Novem- 
ber, 1853,  a  Russian  fleet  destroyed  a  Turkish  fleet  in  the 
Black  Sea,  France  and  England  declared  that  it  was  hostile 
to  the  peace  of  Europe  for  a  Russian  warship  to  sail  the 
Black  Sea,  and  sent  their  own  warships  through  the  Bosporus 


2l8      THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

into  the  Black  Sea,  made  an  alliance  with  Turkey,  and  on 
the  twenty-eighth  of  March,  1854,  declared  war  against 
Russia.     Once  more  there  was  strife  in  Europe. 

To  this  conflict  has  been  given  the  name  of  the  Crimean 
War,  because  the  chief  stronghold  of  Russia  on  the  Black 
Sea  was  at  the  port  of  Sebastopol  on  the  Russian  penin- 
sula known  as  the  Crimea. 

Armies  were  despatched  to  this  point  ;  the  French  and 
English  marched  side  by  side ;  and  had  there  been  abso- 
lute agreement  between  the  leaders,  Sebastopol  would 
have  speedily  been  won.  But  there  were  delays  which 
enabled  the  Russians  to  strengthen  their  defences  and 
increase  their  army  ;  and  the  famous  siege  of  Sebastopol 
began.  Great  battles  accompanied  this  siege.  Alma  was 
fought,  and  the  allies  won ;  Balaklava  was  fought,  and 
the  allies  won  ;  Inkerman  was  fought,  and  the  alUes  won. 
But  still  Sebastopol  held  out,  ably  defended  by  Todleben, 
the  only  great  soldier  of  the  bloody  Crimean  War. 

And  at  Balaklava,  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  October,  1854, 
occurred  that  miserable  mistake  in  orders  by  which  "  the 
noble  six  hundred  "  rode  to  death  and  fame  in  the  ever- 
glorious  cavalry  "  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,"  which 
Tennyson  has  made  immortal :  — 

"  '  Fonvard  !  the  Light  Brigade  I ' 
Was  there  a  man  dismayed  ? 
Not  though  the  soldier  knew 

Some  one  had   blundered. 
Theirs  not  to  make  reply, 
Theirs  not  to  reason  why, 
Theirs  but  to  do  and  die, 
Into  the  Valley  of  Death 

Rode  the  six  hundred." 


ON   THE    PORTAL   OF   THE    FUTURE.  219 

So  1855  came  around  with  the  world  at  war  again; 
but,  out  of  it,  with  misery  came  heroism  ;  with  resistance 
came  regeneration  ;  with  horror  came  courtesies  and  ame- 
lioration ;  for  the  Crimean  War  was  responsible  for  Florence 
Nightingale,  whose  unselfish  devotion  knew  neither  friend 
nor  foe ;  whose  shadow  on  the  wall  the  grateful  soldiers 
would  kiss  even  in  their  suffering ;  and  whose  efforts  revo- 
lutionized the  horrors  of  military  hospitals,  and  led  to  the 
Red  Cross  service  of  this  gentler  day  of  "  malice  toward 
none  and  charity  to  all." 

The  Crimean  War  led,  also,  in  December,  1854,  to  a 
stronger  alliance  between  the  western  powers  of  Europe, 
and  brought'  to  the  front,  as  the  representative  of  the  little 
kingdom  of  Sardinia,  the  great  man  of  the  age,  the  leader 
in  the  struggle  for  nationality,  Camillo,  Count  di  Cavour, 
prime  minister  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  and  regenerator  of 
Italy. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

HOW    ONE    MAN    LIBERATED    A    NATION. 
(From   i8^j  to  i860.) 

THE  year  1855  opened  with  cold  and  sickness  in  the 
camp  of  the  aUies,  and  with  the  twin  towers  of  the 
Malakoff  and  the  Redan  still  standing  impregnable  above 
the  defences  of  Sebastopol. 

Thus  stood,  too,  throughout  the  world,  in  that  year  of 
1855,  other  twin  towers,  seemingly  impregnable,  relics  of 
the  days  of  barbarism  and  despotism.  Even,  as  in  Egypt 
and  the  East,  the  stick-plough  and  the  shadoof  of  Abraham's 
time  were  still  used  in  farming,  so,  in  civilized  lands,  cer- 
tain institutions  of  the  days  of  patriarchial  barbarism  still 
survived,  unmolested. 

There  was  slavery  in  progressive  America,  and  serfdom 
in  veneered  Russia  ;  labor  was  still  disenfranchised  in  phil- 
anthropic England,  and  popular  rights  were  disregarded  in 
revolutionary  France  ;  absolutism  still  held  sway  in  liberal 
Germany,  and  Austria's  clutch  still  lay  stern  and  unyield- 
ing upon  the  throat  of  trampled  Italy  ;  intemperance  and 
pauperism  .still  walked  hand  in  hand  throughout  the  world, 
and  all  alliances  for  mutual  protection  and  mutual  benefit 
seemed  alike  powerless  to  resist  and  impotent  to  reform. 

Gradually,  however,  the  trenches  of  the  allies  drew 
closer  and  closer  to  the  Russian  works  ;  disease  and  in- 
competency, to  be  sure,  wasted  the  allied  ranks,  but  they 


TYPES    OF    THE     /  Thiers 

AGE    OF    CAVOUR  i  l\wi^r°"'' 


Nai'oi.eon  III 

\'n.TOKIA 

Tennyson 


HUW    ONE   MAN    LIBERATED   A    NATION.  221 

never  relaxed  their  stubborn  grip  upon  besieged  Sebastopol. 
Austria,  fearful  for  its  eastern  boundaries,  joined  the  alli- 
ance against  Russia  ;  and  the  Count  Cavour,  with  the  for- 
tunes of  Italy  in  his  hands,  boldly  and  shrewdly  pledged 
the  little  kingdom  of  Sardinia  to  the  same  alliance,  and 
secured  for  himself  the  friendship  of  England  and  France, 
so  necessary  to  his  patriotic  plans. 

In  September,  1855,  the  twin  towers  of  the  Malakoff 
and  the  Redan  fell  before  the  allied  assaults  ;  Sebastopol 
was  evacuated,  and  the  Crimea  lay  at  the  mercy  of  the 
allies.  Crushed  by  the  weight  of  his  disasters  and  the 
failure  of  his  plans,  the  Czar  Nicholas  died  of  a  broken 
heart  —  and  the  stubborn  cause  of  despotism  seemingly 
died  with  him.  The  defeat  of  Russia  in  the  Crimean  War 
was  her  salvation  rather  than  her  disgrace.  The  new 
Czar,  Alexander  II.,  making  a  virtue  of  necessity,  accepted 
proposals  of  peace,  and  the  war  came  to  an  end  by  the 
treaty  of  Paris  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  February,  1856. 
Thus  was  Russia,  at  an  enormous  cost  of  life  and  treasure 
to  Eastern  and  Western  Europe,  prevented  from  deciding 
the  fate  of  Turkey ;  the  "  sick  man,"  upheld  by  Western 
bayonets,  still  sat  at  the  gateway  to  the  East,  a  disgrace 
to  civilization,  and  the  "  Eastern  question  "  was  far  from 
settled.  England,  through  her  "  unpreparedness "  and 
blunders,  lost  a  certain  amount  of  military  prestige. 
France,  to  satisfy  the  ambitions  of  her  Emperor,  had 
accomplished  little  except  to  annoy  Prussia,  irritate  Aus- 
tria, and  dissatisfy  England,  in  a  war  which  had  not  been 
brilliant,  and  which,  at  an  enormous  cost,  had  accomplished 
little  for  France.  Out  of  it  all  one  man,  only,  came  forth 
as  victor  —  the  Count  Cavour. 


222      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

This  shrewd  and  far-seeing  statesman  had  accompHshed 
his  purpose  ;  he  had  forced  the  great  powers  of  Europe  to 
recognize  and  include  Sardinia  as  a  "  power ; "  he  had 
aroused  the  interest  of  Europe  by  the  courage  of  the  Sar- 
dinians in  the  battle  of  the  Tchernaya ;  and,  admitted  to  the 
Congress  at  Paris,  he  had  presented  the  grievances  of 
Italy  so  strongly  that  both  England  and  France  were 
forced  to  acknowledge  the  justice  of  his  cause ;  and  Italy 
suddenly  awoke  to  the  fact  that  she  "  had  found  a  man  " 
—  a  statesman  who,  as  Mr.  Kirkup  declares,  was  "capable 
of  commanding  at  once  the  confidence  of  Italy  and  the 
respect  of  Europe." 

As  to  the  "key  to  the  front  door"  of  the  birthplace  of 
Christ  at  Bethlehem,  which  had  unlocked  the  temple  of 
war,  I  cannot  find  that  its  ownership  was  decided  by 
the  treaty  of  Paris  ;  but  as  to-day  the  great  fortress-like 
Church  of  the  Nativity  at  Bethlehem  seems  to  be  the 
joint  property  of  the  Greek,  Latin,  and  Armenian  Chris- 
tians, it  is  possible  that  the  saintly  usurper  Napoleon  III. 
had  his  way. 

He  had  his  way  for  a  while  in  other  things.  Because 
Austria  seemed  for  the  time  the  better  ally  to  "  tie  to," 
Great  Britain  appeared  to  be  more  friendly  to  Austria  than 
to  France ;  and  Cavour  was  determined  to  defy  Austria. 
So  the  great  Italian  turned  to  France. 

He  found  Louis  Napoleon  ready  to  listen  and  advise  ; 
when  the  time  came  for  action,  the  wily  Emperor  of  the 
French  was  ready  also  to  act.  He  was  constantly,  as 
Madame  Mohl  declared,  "attempting  little  cojips  d'etat;" 
and  this  time  he  was  ready  to  try  one  both  on  Austria  and 
Italy ! 


HOW   ONE   MAN    LIBERATED   A    NATION.  223 

Cavour,  knowing  how  much  Itahan  nationahty  depended 
upon  his  shrewdness,  "made  up  "  to  the  Emperor  Napoleon ; 
for  he  knew  that  he  must  have  the  help  of  one  of  the  great 
powers  if  he  wished  successfully  to  defy  Austria.  So, 
while  seeking  the  sympathy  of  England,  he  strove  for  the 
open  assistance  of  France ;  he  knew  that  Russia,  because 
of  the  Crimean  War,  was  jealous  and  suspicious  of  Austria ; 
that  Prussia  was  trying  to  overcome  the  influence  of  Aus- 
tria in  the  German  states,  and  that  Hungary,  never  for- 
getting its  humiliation,  was  discontented  and  restless.  He 
had  secured  the  aid  of  France  ;  if  he  could  also  make 
friends  for  Sardinia  of  all  the  rivals  of  Austria,  and  could 
get  the  good  will  of  England,  his  success  seemed  assured. 

The  Sardinian  army  had  made  a  good  record  in  the  Cri- 
mean War ;  Cavour  strengthened  and  improved  it  ;  and 
Austria,  seeing  that  the  army  was  altogether  too  large  for 
so  small  a  kingdom  as  Sardinia,  grew  uneasy  and  protested. 
Thereupon  Cavour  pushed  his  plans  ;  and  by  a  tempting 
offer  of  new  territory  for  France,  even  the  king  Victor 
Emmanuel's  own  homeland  of  Savoy,  he  drew  the  willing 
Napoleon  into  his  scheme  ;  and  at  Plombieres,  a  watering- 
place  in  southern  France,  in  the  fall  of  1858,  he  so  worked 
with  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  that  an  alliance  against 
Austria  was  agreed  upon. 

On  New  Year's  Day,  1859,  ^^e  Emperor  Napoleon  HI. 
sprung  his  little  mine  on  Austria.  He  followed  the  ex- 
ample of  his  famous  uncle,  in  1S03,  and  openly  insulted 
the  Austrian  ambassador  at  a  public  reception,  just  as  the 
greater  Napoleon  had  served  the  English  ambassador,  and 
for  the  same  purpose  —  war. 

War    came    speedily.     On    the    twenty-third    of    April, 


224      THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

1859,  Austria  demanded  the  immediate  disarmament  of 
the  Sardinian  forces;  and  this,  of  course,  being  refused, 
within  three  days  the  Austrian  army  crossed  the  Ticino 
into  Sardinian  territory.  At  once  Napoleon  declared  war 
on  Austria,  proclaiming  it  as  his  purpose  to  expel  Austria 
from  Italy.  King  Victor  Emmanuel,  in  the  Sardinian 
parliament,  said,  "We  are  not  insensible  to  the  cry  of 
suffering  that  rises  to  us  from  so  many  parts  of  Italy ; " 
and  the  purpose  of  Cavour  to  liberate  and  regenerate 
Italy  seemed  near  to  accomplishment. 

The  world  thrilled  at  this  new  blow  for  liberty ;  and,  as 
it  heard  Napoleon's  declaration  that  he  would  make  Italy 
free  from  the  Alps  to  the  Apennines,  the  world  believed 
him  ;  for  the  fox  wore  the  lion's  skin  just  then,  and  the 
world  really  believed  him  to  be  a  lion. 

He  came  into  Italy  as  commander-in-chief ;  King  Victor 
Emmanuel,  the  real  soldier,  served  as  his  second  ;  and  the 
allied  forces  of  France  and  Italy  flung  themselves  on  the 
Austrians,  and  defeated  them  at  Montebello,  and  Magenta, 
and  Solferino ;  the  puppet  princes,  set  up  by  Austria,  fled 
for  their  lives  ;  Venice  was  threatened  ;  Northern  Italy 
was  freed  from  the  Austrian  yoke ;  and  when,  on  the 
eighth  of  June,  1859,  Napoleon  III.  and  Victor  Emmanuel 
rode  into  Milan  at  the  head  of  a  conquering  army,  and 
Lombardy  was  declared  annexed  to  Sardinia  —  or  the 
kingdom  of  Savoy,  as  it  was  sometimes  called  —  the 
lovers  of  liberty  and  progress  flung  their  caps  in  the  air, 
and  the  most  of  them,  at  that  moment,  echoed  Mrs- 
Browning's  praises: 

"  Shout  for  France  and  Savoy  1 
Shout  for  the  helper  and  doer; 


HOW   ONE   MAN    LIBERATED   A    NATION.  22$ 

Shout  for  the  good  sword's  ring, 
Shout  for  the  thought  still  truer. 
Shout  for  the  spirits  at  large 
Who  passed  for  the  dead  this  spring, 
Whose  living  glory  is  sure. 
Shout  for  France  and  Savoy  1 
Shout  for  the  council  and  charge ! 
Shout  for  the  head  of  Cavour ; 
And  shout  for  the  heart  of  a  King, 
That's  great  with  a  nation's  joy. 
Shout  for  France  and  Savoy  1 


Ay,  it  is  He 
Who  rides  at  the  King's  right  hand  1 
Leave  room  for  his  horse  and  draw  to  the  side, 
Nor  press  too  near  in  the  ecstasy 
Of  a  newly-delivered,  impassioned  land. 

He  is  moved,  you  see. 
He,  who  has  done  it  all  1 
They  call  it  a  cold,  stern  face, 

But  this  is  Italy 
Who  rises  in  her  place  — 
For  this  he  fought  in  his  youth, 
Of  this  he  dreamed  in  the  past. 
The  lines  of  the  resolute  mouth 
Tremble  a  little  at  last. 
Cry,  he  has  done  it  all  I 

Emperor 

Evermore." 

Yet  this  was  the  man  —  "he  who  had  done  it  all  "  — 
who,  after  the  welcoming  plaudits  of  Milan  and  the  triumph 
of  Solferino  —  in  which,  however,  so  even  French  histo- 
rians to-day  declare,  "  the  command-in-chief  was  below  the 
proper  level  "  —  this  was  the  man  who,  two  weeks  after 
Solferino,  without  a  word  to  his  trusting  ally  of  Sardinia, 
or  his  superior  in  statecraft,  Cavour,  secretly  met  the  Em- 
peror Francis  Joseph  of   Austria,    at   Villa   Franca,   near 


226      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

Verona,  and  there  signed  a  treaty  of  peace  that  set  the 
world  a-wondering  and  enraged  the  patriots  of  Italy.  It 
was  another  of  Napoleon's  little  coups  d'etat.  And  where 
was  Italy  .-* 

The  peace  of  Villa  Franca  stopped  the  triumphant  course 
of  Italian  independence,  gave  only  Lombardy  to  Victor 
Emmanuel  (and  that  not ,  directly,  but  as  a  gift  through 
Napoleon),  made  the  Pope  of  Rome  head  of  an  Italian" 
confederation  which  left  out  Southern  Italy,  and  gave 
back  to  the  puppets  of  Austria  two  of  their  richest 
provinces, 

Austria  was,  of  course,  humiliated  by  this  treaty,  but 
only  in  a  trifling  way  ;  Italy  and  Victor  Emmanuel  were 
even  more  bitterly  humiliated  ;  even  France  was  not  satis- 
fied with  its  Emperor's  actions  ;  and  when  the  Italian 
provinces  of  Nice  and  Savoy  were  practically  seized  by 
France,  the  Italian  patriots  were  roused  to  a  hot  indigna- 
tion against  their  "deliverer,"  and  Garibaldi,  the  radical 
revolutionist,  took  the  field. 

Cavour  refused  to  sign  the  treaty,  and  resigned  as  prime 
minister  ;  but  when  he  saw  that,  even  with  all  this  disap- 
pointment, Italy  had  really  been  the  gainer,  that  the  power 
of  Austria  in  the  peninsula  was  really  broken,  and  that  he 
could  still  hold  in  his  grasp  the  destiny  of  Italy,  he  returned 
to  his  post,  and  again  took  up  his  life-work — the  liberation 
and  unity  of  all  Italy. 

The  world  was  puzzled  at  the  new  move  of  the  sphinx- 
like Emperor  of  the  French  at  Villa  Franca :  he  liked  to 
be  called  "  the  sphinx,"  he  was  always  so  mysterious. 

Palmerston,  the  prime  minister  of  England,  did  not  be- 
lieve in  Napoleon's  Italian  plans,  and  openly  said  so. 


HOW    ONE   MAN    LIBERATED   A    NATION.  22/ 

"  The  emperor's  mind  is  as  full  of  schemes,"  he  said, 
"as  a  warren  is  full  of  rabbits;  but  his  plans  will  never 
satisfy  the  reasonable  wishes  of  the  Italian  people." 

The  rest  of  the  civilized  world  felt  so  too  ;  and  from 
America,  after  the  bafiliing  peace  of  Villa  F'ranca,  came 
this  warning  pica  for  patience  from  that  wise  young 
prophet,  Lowell : 

"  Wait  a  little;  do  we  not  wait  ? 
Louis  Napoleon  is  not  Fate ; 
Francis  Joseph  is  not  Time ; 
There's  One  hath  swifter  feet  than  Crime. 


Wait,  we  say :  our  years  are  long ; 

Men  are  weak,  but  Man  is  strong; 

Since  the  stars  first  curved  their  rings 

We  have  looked  on  many  things. 

Great  wars  come  and  great  wars  go, 

Wolf-tracks  light  on  polar  snow  ; 

We  shall  see  him  come  and  gone, 

This  second-hand  Napoleon. 
Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin  1 
Lachesis,  twist!  and  Atropos,  sever  I 
In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 
The  silent  headsman  waits  forever." 

"Do  wc  not  wait .?"  asked  the  prophet -poet  in  America 
of  impatient  Europe. 

We  had  waited  long  in  America,  as  through  the  years 
the  cause  of  freedom  halted  just  short  of  fulfilment. 
Nearer  and  nearer  drew  the  two  opposing  ideas  which  for 
years,  honestly  believed  in  and  honestly  upheld,  had  lived 
under  the  shelter  of  the  stars  and  stripes  —  liberty  and 
slavery.  More  and  more  strenuously  as  the  people  saw 
both  justice   and  strength   in  the  demand  of  the  North, 


228     THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY, 

was  the  limiting  of  slavery  demanded.  "  No  more  slave 
States  !  "  was  the  cry. 

In  1856  the  question  came  to  a  crisis  over  the  partition 
of  the  territories  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  as  material  for 
new  States  in  the  Federal  Union.  Should  those  new  States 
be  opened  to  slavery  or  not  .<*  was  the  query  to  be  ans- 
wered. The  Kansas-Nebraska  Act,  passed  by  Congress 
in  1854,  left  it  to  the  people  of  the  two  territories  to 
decide  the  question  for  themselves. 

At  once  the  pro-slavery  and  anti-slavery  men  made 
desperate  efforts  to  gain  control ;  and  emigration,  especially 
into  Kansas,  which  was  the  section  most  in  dispute,  led  to 
an  open  contest  that  became  almost  a  border  war.  After 
three  years  of  this  political  and  civil  strife,  however,  the 
party  of  freedom  won,  and  in  1861  Kansas  was  admitted 
to  the  Union  as  a  free  State. 

But  before  that  day  came,  the  results  of  the  struggle 
had  been  something  more  than  the  question  of  freedom  or 
slavery  in  Kansas.  Compromise  was  broken  down,  politi- 
cal attitudes  changed,  and  the  national  government  was 
forced  either  to  forbid  or  foster  slavery.  It  could  not  be 
left  as  a  question  for  individual  States  to  consider  and 
decide. 

Upon  the  complexion  of  the  next  administration,  the 
settlement  of  this  matter  largely  hung.  Italy  and  Ger- 
many were  fighting  out  the  question,  each  in  its  own 
peculiar  way.  The  republic  of  the  United  States  must  do 
the  same  —  State  Sovereignty  or  Nationality,  which  should 
it  be  ? 

The  man  who  declared,  "  This  government  cannot  endure 
permanently  half  slave  and  half  free ;  "  the  man  who  said, 


HOW   ONE   MAN   LIBERATED   A    NATION.  229 

"  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I  expect  it  will 
cease  to  be  divided  "  —  Abraham  Lincoln  of  Illinois  — 
God's  especial  instrument  for  wisdom  of  choice  and  Amer- 
ican nationality,  was  elected  president,  and  the  inevitable 
conflict  assumed  a  new  and  sterner  stage. 

This  choice  and  election  were  not  brought  about  without 
disturbances  and  upheavals.  Honest  in  their  belief  that 
slavery  was  not  only  right  but  necessary,  the  power  in  the 
Southern  States,  aided  and  abetted  by  sympathizers  and 
supporters  in  the  North,  stubbornly  and  arrogantly  com- 
bated the  "  awakening  of  the  Northern  conscience." 
Feud  and  fanaticism,  riot  and  mob,  vindictiveness  and 
vituperation,  hot  heads  on  both  sides,  and  the  peace-at-any- 
price  man  between  —  all  these  increased  and  exaggerated 
the  growing  quarrel,  which  neither  calm  counsel  nor  con- 
servative compromise  could  longer  restrain  or  settle. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  nationalism  of  thought,  where 
the  best  utterances  and  the  best  achievements  of  men 
unite  all  thinkers  in  a  union  of  intellectual  interest.  There 
is  no  sectionalism  in  the  "republic  of  letters."  How 
much  this  diffusion  of  the  best  thought  of  the  world 
helped  toward  the  progress  of  nationality  and  the  coming 
of  freedom,  it  may  be  hard  to  say  ;  but  certainl)'  the  de- 
cade between  1850  and  i860  was  the  era  of  the  highest 
productive  thought  yet  reached  in  the  world. 

German  scholarship  was  teaching  England  and  America 
to  think  rationally  and  not  to  accept  blindly  ;  Hegel  and 
Kant  and  Schelling,  pioneers  of  progress  in  the  early  years 
of  the  century,  were  interpreted  to  the  widely-growing 
class  of  readers  and  thinkers  ;  Goethe  and  Schiller,  Fichte 
and  Jean  Paul,  Madame  de  Stael  and  Rousseau,  were  widely 


230      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

read  in  other  than  their  own  lands,  and  freedom  of  thought 
led  to  freedom  of  action.  "The  old  is  for  slaves,"  declared 
Emerson,  the  American  ;  and  while  those  who,  as  in  every 
age,  think  the  new  of  little  value,  and  bemoan  the  fact  that 
there  are  none  to  compare  with  the  giants  of  the  past,  the 
young  men  of  the  present,  upon  whom  all  real  advance 
always  depends,  were  appreciating  the  fact  that  there  are 
always  giants  in  the  "new  dispensation."  Certainly  those 
years  between  1850  and  i860  were  the  high-water  mark  of 
intellectual  activity.  Then  Dickens  and  Thackeray,  Car- 
lyle  and  Ruskin,  the  Brownings  and  Tennyson,  Trollope 
and  Reade,  Macaulay  and  Kingsley,  were  doing  their  best 
work  in  England.  Darwin  published  his  "  Origin  of  Spe- 
cies "  in  1859.  Herbert  Spencer  began  his  great  work  in 
psychology  and  philosophy,  and  John  Stuart  Mill  was 
emancipating  philosophy  from  pedantry.  Germany  was 
prolific  of  great  students,  philosophers,  scientists,  and  story- 
tellers, —  Ranke  and  Mommsen,  Curtius  and  Sybel,  in  his- 
tory ;  Fischer  and  Ueberweg  in  philosophy ;  Liibke  in  art ; 
Schmidt  and  Hettner  in  literary  studies ;  Strauss  in  theol- 
ogy ;  Liebig  and  Virchow,  Biichner  and  Helmholtz,  in  phys- 
iology and  physics  ;  Freytag  and  Rueter  in  story-telling ; 
while  Wagner,  unsuccessfully  attempting  his  new  departure 
in  music,  was  already  preparing  the  way  for  what  was  after- 
ward accepted  as  "the  music  of  the  future."  These  all 
were  doing  brilliant  work  in  Germany  in  1859  ;  while  in 
France,  Balzac,  though  dead,  and  Victor  Hugo,  though  in 
exile,  were  still  the  literary  giants,  with  the  two  Dumas, 
father  and  son,  Gautier,  Flaubert  and  George  Sand,  Sainte- 
Bueve  and  Taine,  Guizot  and  Thiers  and  Michelet  —  names 
to  add  lustre  and  glory  to  the  literary  achievements  of 


HOW    ONE    MAN    LIBERATED   A    NATION.  23 1 

France  in  poetry,  fiction,  and  history,  even  as  Cousin  and 
Comte  in  philosophy,  De  Tocqueville,  who  left  his  work 
unfinished,  and  Renan,  who  was  just  commencing,  Simon 
and  De  Remusat  in  philosophy  and  politics,  with  other  stu- 
dents of  wisdom  and  power,  made  the  second  empire  rich 
in  productive  labors.  In  Russia,  Turgenieff  was  the  most 
prominent  man  of  letters,  as  he  was  also  the  greatest  of 
Russian  novelists  until  overshadowed  by  the  greater  glory 
of  Tolstoi' ;  while  across  the  sea  in  America,  names  dear  to 
all  lovers  of  English  speech  were  holding  the  attention  and 
the  admiration  of  men  and  women,  —  Longfellow  and 
Whittier,  Holmes  and  Lowell,  Bancroft  and  Motley  and 
Prescott,  Emerson  and  Margaret  Fuller  and  Curtis,  Haw- 
thorne the  great  story-teller,  Ik  Marvel  and  Dr.  Holland, 
and  others  of  lesser  brilliancy  but  of  equal  temporary  fame ; 
while  Thoreau  and  Whitman,  then  unappreciated,  were 
doing  work  which  the  future  was  to  hail  as  great  and  en- 
shrine as  immortal. 

Surely  it  was  a  wonderful  ten  years  —  that  decade  be- 
fore i860.  It  was  great  in  other  fields  of  effort  and 
production.  In  1855  Bessemer,  the  English  engineer,  dis- 
covered and  perfected  the  modern  method  of  making  steel ; 
and  that  same  year  the  great  cataract  of  Niagara  was 
spanned  by  its  first  suspension-bridge  ;  in  1857  and  again 
in  185S  the  union  of  America  and  Europe  by  a  submarine 
telegraph  cable  beneath  the  Atlantic  Ocean  was  attempted, 
and  on  the  twentieth  of  August,  1858,  messages  of  congrat- 
ulation actually  passed  between  the  queen  of  England  and 
the  president  of  the  United  States  ;  but  "  some  one  had 
blundered  "  in  the  proper  insulation  of  the  wire,  and  the 
power  of  transmission   gave  out.      In  that   same  year  of 


232      THE    STORY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

1858  the  mightiest  of  modern  steamships,  up  to  that  time, 
was  launched  —  the  Great  Eastern  ;  and  Sartorius  advo- 
cated the  idea  of  introducing  steam  into  war-vessels.     In 

1859  the  Social  Science  Association,  for  the  study  of  new 
economic,  social,  and  political  questions,  was  founded  ;  and 
the  great  railroad  tunnel  through  Mount  Cenis,  to  connect 
France  and  Italy,  was  begun  ;  Dr.  Livingstone,  at  the  head 
of  an  exploring  expedition,  was  penetrating  the  mysteries 
of  Central  Africa;  the  Victoria  Bridge  at  Montreal  was 
opened  in   1859. 

And  John  Brown,  hung  on  the  second  of  December, 
1859,  for  "  mvading  the  State  of  Virginia  "  at  the  head  of  an 
armed  insurrection,  expiated  a  criminal  blunder  of  con- 
science by  a  heroic  death,  and  stepped  into  the  immortality 
of  a  questionable  martyrdom. 

But  John  Brown's  servile  insurrection  was  not  the  only 
disturbance  of  that  nature  that  distressed  the  world.  Far 
across  the  sea,  in  the  "expanded  "  sections  of  British  India, 
a  stupid  blunder  of  English  military  red  tape  set  the  fires 
of  rebellion  aflame.  The  Hindoos  of  India,  sprung  from 
the  Mussulman  conquest  of  Asia,  had  the  Mohammedan's 
religious  scruples  against  pork.  Certain  of  these  had  be- 
come soldiers  in  the  British  army's  "native  contingent," 
known  as  Sepoys  ;  but  they  were  horrified  and  enraged 
when  ordered  to  bite  the  cartridges,  greased  with  ham  fat, 
which  were  served  out  with  the  new  Enfield  rifle.  As 
soon  as  possible  the  British  military  authorities  did  away 
with  this  offending  method,  but  all  too  late  ;  their  "fore- 
thought came  afterward;"  the  harm  had  been  done  ;  the 
caste-crushed,  creed-bound  Sepoy  lost  confidence  in  his 
British   commander  and   overlords  ;  a  frenzy  of  religious 


HOW    ONE    MAN    LIBERATED   A    NATION.  233 

fanaticism  swept  the  native  soldiers  into  revolt ;  and  Nana 
Sahib,  a  dethroned  Indian  prince  and  pensioner  of  England, 
raised  the  standard  of  rebellion  ;  hostile  chiefs  joined  him  ; 
the  Sepoys  at  Meerut  and  Delhi  and  Cawnpore  mutinied 
against  their  officers,  and  with  savage  cruelties  massacred 
the  men,  women,  and  children  of  the  hated  blood  of  Europe. 
The  horrors  of  the  Sepoy  mutiny  are  among  the  dark 
spots  of  the  Nineteenth  Century's  story.  All  Central  India 
was  in  revolt ;  and  Nana  Sahib,  attempting  to  set  up  a 
native  government,  was  unable  to  command  the  storm  he 
had  raised.  Gradually,  however,  British  pluck  and  bravery 
triumphed  ;  the  hastily  collected  British  troops,  led  by  the 
brave  General  Havelock,  were  everywhere  victorious  ;  the 
mutiny  was  crushed  out  by  vigorous  and  sometimes  brutal 
measures  ;  and  British  dominion,  which  had  at  first  been 
shaken  almost  to  its  very  foundations  by  this  unexpected 
revolt,  was  at  last  re-established.  But  the  massacre  at 
Cawnpore,  the  relief  of  Lucknow,  and  the  siege  of  Delhi 
were  three  ever  memorable  happenings  of  this  terrible 
mutiny ;  while  the  story  of  Jessie  Brown  and  the  "  Pipes  of 
Lucknow  "  — 

"Oh  I  dinna  ye  hear  the  slogan  far  away?" 

has  outlived  even  the  gallant  deeds  of  Havelock  and  the 
unshaken  loyalty  of  the  Sikhs. 

The  spirit  of  true  patriotism  that  was  cementing  the 
Christians  of  the  West  into  sure  nationalities  was  alto- 
gether lacking  in  the  pagan  East.  Class  and  caste,  which 
provoked  the  Sepoy  mutiny,  were  the  very  things  that 
condemned  it  to  failure.  Indeed,  as  Professor  Seeley  says, 
"the  mutiny  was  in  great  measure  put  down  by  turning 


234      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

the  races  of  India  against  each  other  ; "  and  it  is  by  making 
India  Enghsh  rather  than  keeping  it  Indian  that  Great 
Britain  has  strengthened  and  preserved  her  mighty  power 
in  Asia. 

So,  throughout  the  world,  the  decade  of  1850  to  i860, 
which  may  justly  be  called  the  age  of  Cavour,  or  the  era 
of  nationality,  was,  even  by  its  mistakes  and  failures,  as  by 
its  successes,  putting  the  despots  down  and  exalting  the 
nation-builders.  For  the  failure  of  the  Sepoy  mutiny  was 
the  very  best  thing  for  modern  India,  released  by  British 
unity  from  the  days  of  feud  and  despotism  ;  and  the  failure 
of  John  Brown  strengthened  both  sides  of  the  American 
contestants  for  the  conflict  that  was  now  seen  to  be  inevi- 
table. The  efforts  of  Cavour  and  Victor  Emmanuel  and 
Garibaldi  in  Italy  inspired  the  world  to  equal  efforts  in 
unity  and  patriotism ;  and  the  Russian  overthrow  in  Sebas- 
topol  had  cemented  that  great  nation  into  nobler  endeavor, 
and  aroused  in  the  new  Czar  the  desire  to  help  rather  than 
hinder  his  subjects  by  making  them  men  instead  of  keeping 
them  slaves. 

Those  historic  ten  years  were,  therefore,  forward-look- 
ing, forward-moving  days.  The  thought  of  the  world  was 
broadening  with  its  desires  —  perhaps  because  of  them  ; 
and  an  age  that  could  create  a  Cavour,  and  bring  forward 
a  Lincoln,  was  doing  mighty  service  for  mankind  and  for 
all  time.  The  age  that  could  produce  in  one  language 
alone,  as  did  those  then  years,  Macaulay's  "  England," 
Thackeray's  "Pendennis,"  "Esmond,"  "  Newcomes,"  and 
"  Virginians,"  Dickens's  "  David  Copperfield,"  Carlyle's 
"Frederick  the  Great,"  Mrs.  Stowe's  "Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,"   Bulwer   Lytton's   "My   Novel,"   George  Sands's 


HOW    ONE    MAN    LIBERATED    A    NATION.  235 

"Life,"  Tennyson's  "  In  Memoriam,"  Max  Miiller's  "Com- 
parative Mythology,"  Buckle's  "  History  of  Civilization," 
George  Eliot's  "  Adam  Bcdc,"  Darwin's  "  Origin  of  Spe- 
cies," Emerson's  "  Representative  Men,"  Hawthorne's 
"Scarlet  Letter,"  Longfellow's  "Hiawatha,"  and  Holmes's 
"Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,"  with  other  equally 
great  though  perhaps  less  popular  books  ;  which  could 
open  Japan  to  commerce,  probe  the  mysteries  of  darkest 
Africa,  withstand  the  shock  of  savage  rebellion  in  Asia, 
and  pave  the  way  for  nationality  and  liberty  in  Europe  and 
America ;  which  could  attempt  an  Atlantic  cable,  open 
Parliament  to  the  Jews,  bring  the  world  together  in  a  great 
international  exhibition,  and  range  itself  openly  against 
oppression,  bigotry,  despotism,  and  greed  —  such  an  age  as 
that  had  surely  made  for  itself  an  imperishable  record. 


"  He  carried  the  sorrcnvs  of  his  country 
as  truly  as  lie  bore  its  burdens  ;  aiidw/ien 
he  came  to  speak  on  the  second  immortal 
day  at  Gettysburg,  he  condensed  into  a 
Jew  sentences  the  innermost  meaning  of 
the  struggle  and  the  victory  in  the  life  of 
tlu  tuition." 

Hamilton  Wright  Mabie. 


THE   AGE    OF  LINCOLN. 

Freedom. 

(1860-1870.) 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 

THE   EMA  NCI  PA  TOR, 

Bom  Nolins  Creek,  Kentucky,  Feb.  12,  180Q, 

Died  {{Washington,  D.C.,  April  13,  iSOj. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

HOW    ANOTHER    MAN    ENFRANCHISED    A    RACE. 
{From  i860  to  /86j.) 

IN  the  very  month,  May,  i860,  in  which  Garibaldi,  the 
Italian  patriot,  wrested  Sicily  from  the  control  of  Aus- 
tria, and  entered  Palermo  as  a  conqueror,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
the  man  of  the  people,  was  nominated  for  president  of  the 
United  States.  That  month  was  the  opening  of  a  new  era 
for  the  world  —  the  era  of  freedom  —  the  age  of  Lincoln. 

In  that  same  year  John  Stuart  Mill,  the  Englishman, 
published  his  famous  essay  "  On  Liberty."  The  three 
men  may  be  said  to  represent  the  three  phases  or  degrees 
of  real  freedom.  For  Garibaldi  was  a  patriot  by  revolu- 
tion ;  Mill  was  a  patriot  by  theory  ;  Lincoln  was  a  patriot 
by  a  stern  but  loving  conservatism.  And,  of  those  three 
phases,  the  noble  conservatism  of  Lincoln  —  which  was 
based  on  his  immortal  words  :  "  with  malice  toward  none, 
with  charity  for  all ;  with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God 
gives  us  to  see  the  right"  —  has  best  stood  the  test  of 
time,  and  has  been  the  keynote  to  the  world's  truest  and 
surest  progress. 

Accepting  things  as  they  were,  not  sulking  because  they 
were  not  as  he  wished  to  have  them,  Cavour  returned  to 
his  post,  and  in  January,  i860,  took  his  seat  as  president 
of  the  council  in  the  new  kingdom  of  Sardinia.  That 
kingdom  embraced,  when  he  returned  to  office,  Lombardy 

239 


240     THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

and  the  original  territory  of  the  kingdom  of  Sardinia  and 
Savoy.  But  to  bring  about  release  from  Austria,  Cavour 
had  been  compelled  to  pledge  to  Napoleon  III.,  for  French 
assistance,  his  own  home  province  of  Savoy,  and  the  ad- 
joining one  of  Nice,  the  birthplace  of  Garibaldi,  That  was 
Louis  Napoleon's  love  for  Italian  freedom  ! 

This  sacrifice,  made  by  the  house  of  Savoy  to  the  Italian 
cause,  raised  a  storm  of  indignation  against  Cavour ;  but 
he  was  wiser  than  his  critics  ;  he  knew  what  concessions 
to  the  cause  of  independence  were  necessary,  and  he  made 
them.  Victor  Emmanuel  said  nothing  when  he  saw  the 
cradle  of  his  race  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  unity ;  but  Gari- 
baldi, with  the  hot  blood  of  all  revolutionists,  declared 
that  Cavour  "has  made  me  a  foreigner  in  my  own  house," 
and  betook  himself  to  the  south  where,  at  the  head  of  a 
thousand  "soldiers  of  liberty,"  he  raised  the  standard  of 
revolution  in  Southern  Italy  with  the  rallying  cry  "  Italy 
and  Victor  Emmanuel !  " 

It  proved  a  trumpet-call.  Volunteers  flocked  to  his 
standard.  Sicily  was  speedily  won.  On  the  twenty-sev- 
enth of  May  the  red-shirted  liberator  entered  Palermo  ; 
then,  crossing  to  Naples,  he  drove  out  the  Bourbon  king, 
who  was  at  once  a  despot  and  a  coward,  entered  Naples 
in  triumph,  defeated  and  scattered  the  king's  army,  and 
proclaimed  himself,  in  the  name  of  Victor  Emmanuel, 
dictator  of  the  Two  Sicilies.  Mazzini,  his  brother  revolu- 
tionist, joined  him,  and  together  they  tried  to  rule  the 
kingdom  they  had  won  ;  but  neither  of  them  had  capacity 
for  administration ;  few  real  revolutionists  have  —  from 
Sam  Adams  to  Aguinaldo.  Garibaldi,  brave  as  a  lion  in 
battle,  was  not  a  statesman ;  and  he  and  Mazzini  had  sev- 


now   ANOTHER   MAN    ENFRANCHISED    A    RACE.     241 

eral  schemes  in  mind  —  among  others  the  proclamation  of 
a  republic,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  Papal  power  at  Rome. 

Trouble  seemed  brewing ;  the  Sicilies,  freed  from  the 
Bourbons,  were  discontented  with  results,  and  anarchy  was 
threatened.     Then  Cavour  acted. 

"Garibaldi  wishes  to  perpetuate  the  revolution,"  he  said. 
"We  wish  to  terminate  it." 

While  the  revolution  in  Naples  was  in  progress,  Cavour 
had  been  busy  at  nation-making  in  the  north.  Northern 
Italy,  between  the  Po  and  Tuscany,  joined  the  new  king- 
dom on  March  14,  i860;  two  days  later  Tuscany  was 
annexed  by  popular  vote ;  and  when  the  great  statesman 
saw  that  Garibaldi's  unsupported  design  on  Rome  might 
endanger  the  Italian  cause,  and  set  Europe  against  him,  he 
advocated  the  same  measure  himself;  and,  with  the  sanction 
of  Napoleon  —  for  he  was  shrewd  enough  to  still  keep 
friends  with  France  —  he  sent  a  Sardinian  army  to  invade 
the  domains  of  the  Pope  "for  the  unification  of  Italy." 
King  Victor  Emmanuel  followed  with  re-enforcements, 
crossed  the  Apennines,  and  effected  a  union  with  Garibaldi, 
coming  from  the  south.  The  temporal  dependencies  of 
the  Pope  revolted  in  favor  of  Italian  unity.  Garibaldi 
hailed  Victor  Emmanuel  as  King  of  Italy,  resigned  his  dic- 
tatorship of  Naples,  and  retired  to  his  island  home  of 
Caprera.  Then  Sicily  and  Naples  voted  for  annexation  ; 
Victor  Emmanuel  entered  the  latter  capital  in  triumph  in 
November,  and  Cavour  said  exultantly,  "  We  are  Italy ;  we 
work  in  her  name." 

There  was  no  repressing  the  triumphant  spirit  of  nation- 
ality ;  from  the  Alps  to  the  Apennines,  in  spite  of  Napo- 
leon's backsHding,  Italy  was  free  ;  and  on  the  eighteenth 


242      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

of  February,  1861,  the  first  Italian  parliament  met  at  Turin, 
and  Victor  Emmanuel  was  proclaimed  king  of  Italy. 

Cavour's  great  work  was  done.  The  dream  of  his  youth 
was  realized.  "  A  new  Italy,"  says  Mr.  Kirkup,  "  had 
sprung  from  the  ashes  of  the  old,  an  Italy  of  representative 
government  and  of  enlightened  progress,  the  mistress  of 
her  own  destinies,  and  a  worthy  member  of  the  common- 
wealth of  nations."  Then  the  terrible  strain  of  years  of 
thought  and  effort  told  on  the  great  statesman ;  the  reac- 
tion came;  and  on  the  sixth  of  June,  1861,  he  died,  still 
talking  of  Italy,  and  saying,  "A  free  church  in  a  free 
state  !  "  — his  life-long  idea  of  freedom. 

"  We  came  home  in  a  cloud  here,"  runs  the  last  letter 
ever  written  by  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  the  English- 
Italian  patriot.  "  I  can  scarcely  command  voice  or  hand 
to  name  Cavour.  That  great  soul  which  meditated  and 
made  Italy  has  gone  to  the  divine  Country.  If  tears  or 
blood  could  have  saved  him  to  us,  he  should  have  had 
mine.  I  feel  yet  as  if  I  could  scarcely  comprehend  the 
greatness  of  the  vacancy.  A  hundred  Garibaldi's  for  such 
a  man." 

And  at  Florence,  three  weeks  after,  she  too,  died,  over- 
come, it  is  now  asserted,  by  grief  at  the  death  of  Cavour,  so 
dear  to  her  was  Italy  free,  so  great  the  man  who  had  ac- 
complished this  freedom. 

"  A  hundred  Garibaldis  for  such  a  man  !  "  and  yet  it  is 
Garibaldi,  the  revolutionist,  who  has  always  been  popularly 
accepted  as  the  hero  and  chief  instrument  of  Italian  inde- 
pendence and  nationality.  All  instruments  have  their  use  ; 
the  revolutionist.  Garibaldi,  was  a  mighty  factor  toward 
Italian  unity  ;  but  it  was  Cavour,  the  conservative,  who  re- 


now    ANOTHER   MAN    ENFRANCHISED   A    RACE.     243 

deemed  and  regenerated  Italy,  just  as,  in  America,  John 
Brown,  the  fanatic,  paved  the  way  for  Lincoln,  the  conser- 
vative statesman. 

The  way  was  rapidly  being  paved  for  this  great  man's 
coming.  Nominated  for  the  presidency  in  May,  i860, 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  elected  in  November  following,  and 
the  American  people  faced  a  mighty  crisis. 

Great  men  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  have  not  been 
meteoric ;  they  have  been  largely  self-made  ;  the  greatest 
of  them  all,  Abraham  Lincoln,  was  comparatively  an  un- 
known man  in  i860. 

**  Who  is  this  huckster  in  politics  .''  "  demanded  the  chief 
spokesman  of  the  radical  Abolitionists. 

Indeed,  of  "  this  obscure,  not  to  say  unknown  man,"  as  he 
was  described.  Dr.  Edward  Channing  remarks,  "  It  is  certain 
that  at  that  time  few  persons  realized  the  grandeur  of  Lin- 
coln's character,  his  splendid  common  sense,  and  his  mar- 
vellous insight  into  the  real  nature  of  things." 

But  the  agitators  of  the  South  realized  what  the  election 
of  a  republican  president  meant.  Congress,  in  December, 
i860,  sought  to  pass  compromise  measures  ;  but  the  day  of 
compromise  had  gone  forever.  Then  South  Carolina, 
seeking  to  maintain  her  stand  as  a  sovereign  State  whose 
rights  were  paramount  to  those  of  the  nation,  failed  to  ap- 
preciate the  constitutional  progress  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury and  the  democratic  spirit  that  underlies  true  national- 
ity. She  asserted  her  right  to  go  out  of  the  Union,  if  she 
wished  to,  and  on  the  twentieth  of  December,  i860,  "  se- 
ceded ;"  — that  is,  declared  through  her  State  convention, 
that  "the  union  between  the  State  of  South  CaroHna  and 
other  States  united  with   her  under  the  compact  entitled 


244      THE   STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

'The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  of  America '  is  dis- 
solved." The  people  of  South  Carolina  were  not  asked  to 
vote  upon  this  action  ;  the  State  convention  simply  author- 
ized it.  Other  Southern  States  followed  in  the  same  way  ; 
and  by  the  first  of  February,  1861,  seven  Southern  States 
had,  in  convention,  also  passed  ordinances  of  secession  and 
elected  delegates  to  a  Constitutional  convention  at  Mont- 
gomery in  Alabama.  There,  on  the  fourth  of  February, 
1 86 1,  the  "Confederate  States  of  America,"  were  decreed, 
the  main  object  of  which  confederation  was,  according  to 
its  constitution,  "to  recognize  and  protect  the  institution 
of  slavery  as  it  now  exists  in  the  Confederate  States." 
Jefferson  Davis  was  made  president  of  the  new  Confeder- 
acy, and  was  inaugurated  on  the  twenty-second  of  Febru- 
ary, 1 86 1  —Washington's  birthday — the  memorial  day 
of  the  man  who,  in  his  immortal  Farewell  Adddress,  had 
so  solemnly  pleaded  with  his  fellow-countrymen. 

"The  unity  of  government  which  constitutes  you  one 
people,"  said  George  Washington,  "is  the  main  pillar  in 
the  edifice  of  your  real  independence.  .  .  .  Cherish  a  cor- 
dial, habitual,  and  immovable  attachment  to  it,  .  .  .  dis- 
countenance whatever  may  suggest  even  a  suspicion  that 
it  can,  in  any  event,  be  abandoned,  and  indignantly  frown 
upon  the  first  dawning  of  every  attempt  to  alienate  any 
portion  of  our  country  from  the  rest,  or  to  enfeeble  the 
sacred  ties  which  now  link  together  the  various  parts." 

Abraham  Lincoln  proposed  to  do  what  Washington  had 
insisted  upon  —  preserve  the  Union.  He  was  inaugurated 
March  4,  1861  ;  and  in  his  address  as  President  of  the 
United  States,  he  outhned  his  determination. 

"  I  hold  that  in  contemplation  of  universal  law  and  of  the 


now    ANOTHER   MAN    ENFRANCHISED    A    RACE.     245 

Constitution,"  he  said,  "the  Union  of  these  States  is  per- 
petual. .  .  .  No  State  upon  its  own  mere  motion  can  law- 
fully go  out  of  the  Union ;  .  .  .  therefore  the  Union  is 
unbroken.  ...  In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow- 
countrymen,  and  not  in  mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of 
civil  war.  The  government  will  not  assist  you.  You  can 
have  no  conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors. 
You  have  no  oath  registered  in  heaven  to  destroy  the  gov. 
ernment,  while  I  shall  have  the  most  solemn  one  to  pre- 
serve, protect,  and  defend  it." 

That  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  incarnation  of  a  just 
conservatism.  And  how  his  plea  for  the  brotherhood  of 
Americans  supplemented  Washington's  plea  for  an  undis- 
turbed Union  !     His  inaugural  words  are  immortal : 

"  I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies  but  friends. 
We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have 
strained,  it  must  not  break  our  bonds  of  affection.  The 
mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battlefield 
and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone  all 
over  this  broad  land  wnll  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union 
when  again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better 
angels  of  our  nature." 

"This  broad  land,"  that  Abraham  Lincoln  had  taken  an 
oath  to  keep  intact,  had  widened  and  developed  marvel- 
lously since  the  day  when  Washington  wrote  his  Farewell 
Address,  sixty-five  years  before.  When  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  inaugurated  as  president  in  1861,  the  thirteen  original 
States  had  grown  to  thirty-four  ;  the  limits  of  the  land  had 
swollen  from  the  eight  hundred  thousand  square  miles  of 
Washington's  day  to  three  millions  ;  the  population  had  in- 
creased from  four  millions  to  more  than  thirty-one  millions  ; 


246      THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

the  republic  had  grown  from  a  loose  confederacy  of  isolated 
communities,  which  the  world  regarded  with  curiosity  and 
indifference,  to  a  great  nation,  which  all  the  world  re- 
spected, recognized,  and  feared.  As  the  crisis  came  which 
Lincoln  must  face  and  control,  the  world  prophesied 
the  downfall  of  the  republic ;  and  absolutism,  not  yet 
"scotched"  in  Europe,  gleefully  prophesied  the  failure  of 
democracy  in  America.  Even  reformers  across  the  sea  had, 
many  of  them,  echoed  Mrs.  Browning's  gratuitous  and  in- 
sufferable "  curse,"  because  America,  a  free  republic,  still 
endured  slavery : 

"  When  wise  men  give  you  their  praise, 
They  shall  pause  in  the  heat  of  the  phrase, 

As  if  carried  too  far  ; 

When  ye  boast  your  own  charters  are  true, 

Ye  shall  blush ;    for  the  thing  which  ye  do 

Derides  what  ye  are. 

This  is  the  curse.      Write!" 

And  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  with  his  acknowledged 
contempt  for  hberty,  voiced  the  aristocratic  sentiment  of 
Europe  in  language  that  but  thinly  veiled  his  belief  that 
the  American  republic  was  doomed. 

Even  in  America,  opinion  was  divided.  Radical  Repub- 
licans and  Abolition  leaders  were  inclined  to  advise  a  peace- 
able separation,  l)elieving  that  any  attempt  to  maintain  a 
Union  in  which  such  hostile  forces  existed  as  slavery  and 
freedom  was  an  impossibility.  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  a 
leader  of  the  Abolition  sentiment,  insisted  on  disunion. 
"If  we  would  see  the  slave  power  overthrown,"  he  said, 
"the  Union  must  be  dissolved ;"  and  even  Horace  Greeley, 
the  greatest  editor  of  his  day,  the  champion  of  free  speech, 


now    ANOTHER   MAN    ENFRANCHISED   A    RACE.       247 

free  labor,  and  free  men,  asserted  that  if  the  slave  States 
chose  to  form  an  independent  nation  they  had  a  clear 
moral  right  to  do  so. 

Fortunately  for  humanity  and  progress  Abraham  Lincoln 
held  other  views.  From  his  youth  a  hater  of  slavery,  he 
still  held  that  his  personal  opinions  were  of  no  weight  in 
this  crisis. 

"  My  paramount  object  in  this  struggle  is  to  save  the 
Union,"  he  declared.  "  I  am  naturally  anti-slavery.  If 
slavery  is  not  wrong,  nothing  is  wrong.  But  I  took  an 
oath  that  I  would,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  preserve,  pro- 
tect, and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
This  oath  forbids  me  to  practically  indulge  my  primary  ab- 
stract judgment  on  the  moral  question  of  slavery.  I  would 
save  the  Union  ;  I  would  save  it  the  shortest  way  under  the 
Constitution.  .  .  .  Whatever  I  do,  I  shall  do  because  it 
helped  to  save  the  Union." 

This  noble  position  of  a  just  conser\'atism,  of  a  man  who 
knew  his  duty  and  stood  ready  to  execute  it,  Abraham 
Lincoln  steadfastly  kept  .through  the  four  years  of  bitter 
and  wasting  war  that  followed  his  inauguration  as  president. 

For  that  war  came  speedily.  Compromise  and  conces- 
sion were  no  longer  possible.  The  Southern  States,  in  a 
firm  belief  in  their  right  to  withdraw  from  the  Union  if 
they  so  desired,  seceded.  The  Northern  leaders,  believing  in 
the  national  idea  to  which  all  the  world  was  advancing,  held 
that  the  voluntary  union  of  States  into  a  nation  could  not  be 
dissolved  by  the  action  of  one  or  more  States ;  for  as  Mr. 
Lincoln  declared,  "  One  party  to  a  contract  may  violate  or 
break  it,  but  it  requires  all  to  lawfully  rescind  it." 

Unprepared  for  war  —  the  ever-repeated  stor}'  when  war 


248      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

actually  comes, — weakened  by  the  withdrawal  of  many 
army  and  navy  officers  who  sympathized  with  the  South,  or 
believed  it  their  duty  to  "stand  loyal  to  their  State,"  rather 
than  to  the  republic  that  had  educated  and  supported  them, 
the  military  force  of  the  United  States  was  sadly  depleted, 
and  many  of  the  southern  forts  which  belonged  to  the 
whole  Union  were  actually  taken  possession  of  by  the 
States  on  whose  soil  they  stood.  One  such  point  of  de- 
fence, however.  Fort  Sumter  in  the  harbor  of  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  was  held  by  an  officer  who  believed  that  his 
oath  to  the  republic  was  higher  than  his  duty  to  his  State. 

"  I  am  a  Southern  man,"  replied  Major  Robert  Ander- 
son in  command  at  Fort  Sumter,  when  urged  to  desert 
his  post  ;  "  but  I  have  been  assigned  to  the  defence  of 
Charleston  Harbor,  and  I  intend  to  defend  it." 

He  had  the  opportunity  to  prove  his  noble  words. 
Stung  to  foolish  and  hasty  action  by  the  demands  of  their 
own  hot  heads  and  the  defiant  position  of  Major  Anderson 
and  his  little  command,  the  South  Carolina  forces  opened 
fire  on  Fort  Sumter  on  the  twelfth  of  April,  1861  ;  on  the 
fourteenth  the  fort  surrendered,  riddled  by  the  bombard- 
ment and  wasted  by  fire  ;  but  Major  Anderson  had  done 
his  duty,  and  the  foohsh  action  of  "the  first  gun"  threw 
the  responsibility  of  war  upon  the  Southern  leaders,  and 
aroused  the  North  to  united,  determined,  and  patriotic 
action. 

Then  war  followed  —  the  most  determined  and,  in  many 
respects,  the  most  notable  struggle  of  the  century  ;  for  it 
was  waged  for  a  principle,  by  men  of  equal  courage,  equal 
fortitude,  and  equal  will,  brothers  in  speech  and  lineage; 
the  most  dreadful  of  all  conflicts  — a  civil  war. 


HOW    ANOTHER    MAN    ENFRANCHISED    A    RACE.      249 

Great  armies  were  raised  ;  great  battles  were  fought ; 
great  victories  were  won.  There  was  patriotism  according 
to  the  Northern  idea  north  of  the  Potomac  ;  south  of  the 
Potomac  there  was  patriotism  according  to  the  Southern 
idea ;  and  on  both  sides  were  valor,  devotion,  sacrifice, 
and  faith.  Speedily  a  great  general  was  made  leader  on 
the  Southern  side  —  Robert  E.  Lee  ;  gradually  a  greater 
general  was  evolved  on  the  Northern  side  —  Ulysses  S. 
Grant  ;  and  finally,  after  months  and  years  of  mistakes, 
errors,  failures,  re-enforcements,  and  successes,  the  war  be- 
came a  campaign,  desperately  waged  for  victory,  between 
those  two  rival  captains. 

The  struggle  was  fought  out  on  Southern  soil ;  only  once 
did  the  Confederate  armies  succeed  in  an  invasion  of  the 
north  ;  and  at  Gettysburg  in  Pennsylvania,  on  the  first, 
second,  and  third  of  July,  1863,  the  invaders  were  repulsed 
and  driven  back  after  one  of  the  decisive  battles  of  the 
world  —  the  terrible  battle  of  Gettysburg. 

The  war  hinged  mainly  on  the  possession  of  the  border 
States  —  those  that  had  always  formed  the  dividing-line 
between  North  and  South,  between  slavery  and  freedom  ; 
and  it  was  due  to  the  patient  determination  of  an  even 
greater  leader  than  Grant  or  Lee  —  Abraham  Lincoln,  the 
president  —  that  these  border  States  were  held,  saved,  and 
retained  for  the  Union. 

By  his  wise,  patient,  and  conservative  action, — yielding 
neither  to  the  defiance  of  the  South  nor  to  the  impatience 
of  the  North,  swayed  neither  by  victory  nor  defeat,  by 
failure  or  success,  —  Abraham  Lincoln  held  strictly  to  his 
course  —  to  save  the  Union.  Then,  at  last,  when  after 
two  years  of  uncertain  war  and   ineffectual  campaigns,  he 


250      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

saw  that  the  people  of  the  North  were  beginning  to  believe 
in  him  alone,  to  trust  to  him  and  to  him  only  as  the  real 
saviour  of  the  Union  ;  when  he  knew  that  the  time  was  ripe 
for  one  vital  and  crowning  act  that  would  strengthen  the 
North,  compel  the  rebellious  South,  convince  the  wavering 
border  States,  and  show  the  watching  world  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  was  pledged  to  freedom  as 
well  as  nationality,  Abraham  Lincoln  acted. 

On  the  first  of  January,  1863,  he  issued  the  emancipation 
proclamation,  which  he  had  long  contemplated ;  in  which,  as 
he  declared,  "  I  am  going  to  fulfil  the  promise  made  to 
myself  and  to  my  God ; "  for  which,  so  he  told  his  cabi- 
net, he  alone  was  responsible.  "  I  do  not  wish  for  your 
advice  about  the  main  matter  ;  that  I  have  determined  for 
myself,"  he  said.  And  thus  that  immortal  document  ran  : 
"Now  therefore  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the 
United  States,  by  virtue  of  the  power  vested  in  me  as 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the  United 
States  in  time  of  actual  armed  rebellion  against  the  au- 
thority and  government  of  the  United  States,  and  as  a  fit 
and  necessary  war  measure  for  suppressing  said  rebellion, 
do,  on  this  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  in  accordance 
with  my  purpose  so  to  do,  order  and  declare  that  all  per- 
sons held  as  slaves  within  said  designated  States  and  parts 
of  States  are  and  henceforth  shall  be  free,  and  that  the 
Executive  government  of  the  United  States,  including  the 
military  and  naval  authorities  thereof,  will  recognize  and 
maintain  the  freedom  of  such  persons." 

It  was  done  ;  this  edict,  which,  as  Mr.  Rhodes  declares, 
"heralded  a  new  epoch  in  the  world's  progress,"  was  thus 


HOW   ANOTHER   MAN    ENFRANCHISED    A    RACE.       25  I 

given  to  the  world,  and  the  nature  and  complexion  of  the 
republic's  struggle  for  union  and  nationality  were  utterly 
and  irrevocably  changed. 

And  not  only  was  the  complexion  of  the  war  for  the 
Union  changed  by  Abraham  Lincoln's  immortal  act ;  pub- 
lic opinion  throughout  the  world  was  changed.  England, 
which  had  too  long  toyed  with  the  question  of  right,  and  to 
the  eternal  shame  of  Gladstone,  England's  leading  states- 
man, had  leaned  towards  recognition  of  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy,—  a  possible  power  based  upon  the  slavery  that 
England  had  so  arrogantly  condemned,  —  was  turned  by 
Lincoln's  act  of  justice  from  foe  to  friend ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  people  of  England,  led  by  such  inspired  men  as  John 
Bright,  became  staunch  supporters  of  the  Union,  and  gave 
a  hearty  amen  to  the  prayer  of  their  great  preacher,  New- 
man Hall:  "God  bless  and  strengthen  the  North;  give 
victory  to  their  arms  !  "  France,  whose  emperor  from  the 
first  was  unfriendly  to  the  Union,  really  favored  the  North  ; 
for,  remembering  her  own  struggle  for  freedom,  the 
people,  as  John  Stuart  Mill  wrote  from  Southern  France 
to  an  American  friend,  "are  unquestionably  with  you." 
The  people  of  Europe,  indeed,  so  far  as  they  compre- 
hended the  situation,  were  friendly  to  the  people  of  the 
American  Republic  ;  but  with  the  rulers  it  was  different. 

Chief  among  these  unfriendly  rulers  was,  as  I  have  inti- 
mated, the  Emperor  of  the  French.  Professing  to  derive 
his  title  from  the  will  of  the  people,  Louis  Napoleon  recog- 
nized no  will  as  superior  to  his  own,  and  schemed  to  con- 
trol affairs  not  only  in  Italy,  Syria,  and  Algeria,  —  in 
Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  —  but  in  America  as  well.  Pos- 
ing as  the  Heaven-sent  leader  of  the  Latin  race,  he  sent  his 


252      THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

thoughts  across  the  sea,  and  saw  his  opportunity  in  dis- 
tracted America,  where,  as  he  fondly  dreamed,  the  Repub- 
lic of  the  United  States  was  doomed  to  speedy  destruction, 
and  where  he  might,  therefore,  safely  set  on  foot  an  enter- 
prise that  should  exalt  the  Latin  over  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race,  and  make  Napoleon  III.  the  head  and  hero  of  it  all. 

To  this  restless  adventurer  opportunity  was  never  lack- 
ing. The  sympathy  of  Europe  was  with  Italy  rather  than 
with  him,  because  of  his  double  dealing  toward  the  Italian 
desire  for  nationality  ;  and  he  felt  that  he  must  recover  his 
lost  prestige,  especially  with  the  French  people,  who  always 
mistrusted,  even  when  they  supported  him,  because  his 
name  seemed  to  them  a  guaranty  of  strength  and  order. 

Across  the  sea,  in  the  republic  of  Mexico,  there  had 
been  unsettled  and  revolutionary  conditions  ever  since  the 
close  of  the  war  with  the  United  States  in  1848,  and  the 
overthrow  and  flight  of  the  dictator  Santa  Anna  in  1853. 
Spanish-American  republics  learn  the  wisdom  of  order 
slowly ;  and  Mexico,  from  the  time  of  her  independence, 
had  been  especially  unfortunate  —  though  the  most  un- 
stable republic  was  preferable   to  Spanish  despotism. 

But  out  of  these  confusions  finally  emerged  in  1861  a 
semblance  of  peace,  with  the  victory  of  the  liberalist, 
Benito  Juarez,  as  president  of  the  republic,  and  the  suc- 
cessful termination  of  the  three  years'  War  of  Reform.  In 
this  war,  however,  the  property  of  certain  foreigners  resi- 
dent in  Mexico  had  suffered  loss,  while  the  expense  of 
redeeming  the  republic  from  the  grasp  of  the  reactionists 
and  "  illiberals,"  crippled  the  country,  and  led  Juarez  and 
his  congress  to  the  unwise  measure  of  suspending  the 
payment  of  bonds  and  foreign  obligations. 


HOW   ANOTHER   MAN    ENFRANCHISED   A    RACE.       253 

This  of  course  angered  the  foreign  governments  whose 
subjects  were  thus  affected  ;  and  the  three  powers  most 
interested  —  England,  France,  and  Spain  —  demanded 
justice  and  a  settlement  of  the  claims  for  indebtedness, 
amounting  to  over  eighty  millions  of  dollars.  At  a  con- 
vention at  London  in  1861,  the  three  powers  made  an 
alliance  to  enforce  their  demands;  and  in  January,  1862, 
the  republic  of  Mexico  was  invaded  by  a  joint  military  and 
naval  expedition  of  England,  France,  and  Spain. 

The  United  States,  when  urged  to  join  this  debt-collect- 
ing alliance,  bluntly  refused  ;  and  instead,  offered  to  help 
Mexico  either  with  money  or  credit.  But  the  allies  would 
have  justice  only  from  Mexico,  and  the  Mexicans  prepared 
to  fight. 

By  some  wise  management,  however,  on  the  part  of 
Mexican  diplomats,  the  trouble  was  arranged  so  far  as 
England  and  Spain  were  concerned.  Spain  found  that 
her  dream  of  reconquering  Mexico  for  the  Spanish  crown 
was  not  possible ;  and  England,  not  altogether  satisfied 
with  the  company  into  which  she  had  fallen,  hastened  to 
agree  to  any  just  compromise. 

But  the  Emperor  Napoleon  III.  believed  that  his  great 
opportunity  had  come.  His  soldiers  were  on  Mexican 
soil  ;  across  the  border,  the  great  republic,  that  had  given 
him  welcome  and  a  home  in  his  days  of  exile  and  disaster, 
was  fighting  for  its  very  existence.  There  was  no  time 
like  the  present ;  and  Louis  Napoleon,  with  all  the  ambi- 
tion and  none  of  the  ability  of  his  great  uncle,  determined 
to  carry  out  his  scheme  of  control,  make  true  his  dream  of 
a  universal  fusion  of  the  Latin  race  and  the  overthrow  of 
the   Anglo-Germanic  powers,   and    establish   in   Mexico  a 


254       THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

great  Latin  empire,  of  which  France —  and  therefore  Louis 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  —  should  be  mainspring,  dictator,  and 
head. 

So,  when  the  other  allies  withdrew,  the  French  troops 
remained ;  and,  joining  to  themselves  certain  recreant 
Mexicans  who  were  ready  to  conspire  against  the  republic, 
they  marched  into  the  interior.  The  patriots  rallied  to 
repel  the  invasion,  and  on  the  fifth  of  May,  1862,  won  the 
victory  of  Puebla,  still  a  national  anniversary  under  the 
title  of  "the  glorious  fifth  of  May." 

But  Napoleon  had  made  up  his  mind.  Defeat  could 
not  be  permitted.  Re-enforcements  were  hurried  across 
the  sea  until  their  numbers  were  irresistible ;  the  French 
troops  advanced  steadily  to  victory,  conquering  the  north 
and  south.  Occupying  the  city  of  Mexico,  they  first  estab- 
lished a  provisional  government  that  usurped  the  executive 
power,  and  then,  under  orders  from  Napoleon,  decreed 
the  Empire  of  Mexico,  and  offered  the  crown  to  a  Euro- 
pean prince,  Maximilian,  archduke  of  Austria,  and  brother 
of  its  emperor.  In  June,  1864,  the  Austrian  arrived  in 
Mexico  ;  upheld  and  defended  by  foreign  bayonets,  he  ruled 
as  emperor  in  the  "halls  of  the  Montezumas,"  and  Napo- 
leon's crazy  scheme  of  conquest  and  Latin  supremacy 
seemed  on  the  highroad  to  success. 

In  other  parts  of  the  world,  also,  the  Emperor  Napoleon 
was  striving  to  have  the  foremost  "  finger  in  the  pie."  He 
had  forced  from  Italy,  as  the  price  of  his  "  assistance,"  the 
provinces  of  Nice  and  Savoy ;  and  Germany  was  only  re- 
strained by  the  cooling  advice  of  England  from  the  in- 
dignant protest  of  war  over  what  would  some  day  become 
a   question    of    Franco-German    boundaries.       Napoleon's 


HOW   ANOTHER   MAN    ENFRANCHISED    A    RACE.       255 

agents  intrigued  in  Belgium  for  the  annexation  of  that 
kingdom  to  France ;  and  other  of  his  agents,  in  the  same 
business,  stirred  up  war  between  Spain  and  Morocco ;  his 
soldiers  occupied  the  chief  military  posts  in  Syria,  and 
kept  England  perplexed  over  the  imperial  plotter's  designs 
in  the  East.  He  attempted  to  dictate  to  England  as  to 
her  action  when,  in  1863,  the  Poles  broke  out  in  another 
insurrection,  and  he  almost  involved  France  in  a  "  single- 
handed  war  "  with  Russia.  He  set  Europe  laughing  at 
his  pretensions  as  he  endeavored  to  follow  his  great  uncle's 
lead,  and  assemble  a  convention  of  kings  at  Paris ;  and,  by 
secretly  encouraging  the  designs  of  Prussia  in  her  great 
land-steal  of  the  province  of  Schleswig-Holstein  from  Den- 
mark, he  helped  bring  about  the  Schleswig-Holstein  War 
of  1864,  in  which  Prussia  and  Austria  united  against  Den- 
mark. 

This  war  was  concluded  in  a  few  months  by  the  defeat 
of  the  Danes,  a  truce  and  peace  conference  at  London, 
and  finally,  by  the  treaty  of  Vienna,  on  the  thirtieth  of 
October,  1864,  under  which  Denmark  relinquished  the  old 
Danish  provinces  of  Schleswig-Holstein  to  the  victorious 
allies. 

There  was,  in  fact,  a  good  deal  of  restlessness  and  strife 
throughout  the  world  between  i860  and  1865.  Besides 
the  great  struggle  in  the  United  States,  the  war  in  Mex- 
ico, the  Prussian  attack  on  Denmark,  and  the  war  for 
liberation  in  Italy,  there  were  rebellions  in  Poland,  New 
Zealand,  and  China.  Spain  sought  the  conquest  of 
Morocco;  and  Russia  quelled  into  submission  the  long 
defiant  Circassians  of  the  Caucasus,  and  advanced  her 
power  by  force  in  Central  Asia. 


256      THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

But,  in  spite  of  wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  the  world 
made  a  substantial  advance ;  and  Galileo's  famous  declara- 
tion, under  equally  unfavorable  conditions,  "and  yet  it 
moves,"  might  apply  to  this  season  of  unrest,  when,  in- 
deed, England  was  the  only  power  pursuing  a  policy  of 
peace.  For  in  the  same  year  in  which  the  war  for  free- 
dom and  union  broke  out  in  America,  and  while  Italy  was 
struggling  for  independence,  the  last  man  of  all  the  world 
from  whom  a  progressive  advance  might  be  expected,  took 
a  mighty  stride  forward.  On  the  third  of  March,  1861, 
the  day  before  that  on  which  Abraham  Lincoln  was  inau- 
gurated president  of  the  United  States,  Alexander  II., 
Czar  of  all  the  Russians,  emancipated  the  serfs  in  his 
dominions,  and  practically  abolished  manhood  slavery. 

Whether  this  act  of  liberation  came  from  his  own  pro- 
gressive ideas,  or  was  the  heritage  of  a  command  from  his 
dying  and  defeated  father,  it  was  certainly  a  mighty  deed 
—  a  concession  of  despotism  to  liberty,  of  bigotry  to 
progress. 

Other  lands  were  making  similar  concessions  at  about 
that  same  period  of  the  world's  history  The  Japanese, 
for  centuries  confined  within  the  limits  of  their  own  bar- 
baric exclusiveness,  awoke  from  their  long  sleep  of  ages 
when  Perry  the  American  knocked  at  their  door,  and  fol- 
lowed up  their  treaty  of  commerce  and  amity  by  sending 
an  embassy  from  this  island  kingdom  to  meet  and  study 
the  civilizations  of  the  world.  On  the  fourteenth  of  May, 
1 860,  the  Japanese  embassy  was  received  at  Washington  ; 
from  America  it  crossed  the  sea,  and  visited  most  of  the 
European  capitals,  thus  laying  the  foundations  for  that 
direct   and    friendly    association    with    the    outside   world 


now    ANOTHER   MAN    ENFRANCHISED   A    RACE.       257 

which  resulted  finally  in  the  establishment  of  treaty  rela- 
tion with  eighteen  civilized  nations. 

A  new  era  began,  also,  in  Germany  in  the  accession  to 
the  throne  of  Prussia,  in  1861,  of  King  William  the  First  ; 
while  the  American  visit  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  the  heir 
to  the  English  throne,  began  the  gradual  drawing  nearer, 
in  i860,  of  two  nations  kindred  in  speech  and  manners, 
after  nearly  a  century  of  distrust  and  separation. 

This  growing  consideration  and  friendliness  between 
England  and  America  felt  its  severest  strain,  and  stood 
its  direst  test,  as  the  war  between  the  States  of  the  Ameri- 
can Union  began  to  have  a  resultant  influence  upon  Eng- 
lish society  and  people.  From  some  inexplicable  cause 
the  ruling  classes  in  England  favored  the  Southern  cause ; 
but  the  working-men  of  England  favored  the  North  in  its 
efforts  to  re-establish  union  and  proclaim  liberty.  Even 
while  Gladstone,  prime  minister  of  England,  was  saying  in 
a  public  speech  "We  may  anticipate  with  certainty  the 
success  of  the  Southern  States  so  far  as  their  separation 
from  the  North  is  concerned,"  John  Bright,  the  real  leader 
of  England's  liberal  and  progressive  thought  at  that  time, 
declared  to  the  English  people  :  "  I  say  that  this  war,  be 
it  successful  or  not,  be  it  Christian  or  not,  be  it  wise  or 
not,  is  a  war  to  sustain  the  government,  and  to  sustain  the 
authority  of  a  great  nation  ;  and  that  the  people  of  England, 
if  they  are  true  to  their  own  sympathies,  to  their  own  his- 
tory, and  to  their  own  great  act  of  1834,  will  have  no  sym- 
pathy with  those  who  wish  to  build  up  a  great  empire  on 
the  perpetual  bondage  of  millions  of  their  fellow  men." 

There  was  a  strong  movement,  however,  among  the  rul- 
ing men  in  England  to  recognize  the  Southern  Confederacy, 


258      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

or  at  least  to  prevail  upon  France,  Russia,  and  the  other 
•'  great  powers  "  to  intervene  in  the  struggle  that  was  shak- 
ing the  republic. 

But  the  clear-headed  and  wise  queen  of  England  would 
not  consent,  and  threw  all  her  influence  on  the  side  of  the 
North  ;  while  the  real  workers  of  England,  the  five  million 
disfranchised  men  and  the  four  millions  who  had  a  vote, 
stood  loyal  to  freedom  and  the  cause  of  the  Union  as  it 
was  being  fought  out  in  America,  even  when  the  failure  of 
the  cotton  crop,  upon  which  their  daily  bread  almost  de- 
pended, drove  the  working-people  of  England  close  to 
suffering  and  starvation.  Let  America  remember  that 
to-day,  even  as  Abraham  Lincoln  did  when,  in  1863,  he 
wrote  to  the  working-men  of  Manchester :  "  I  cannot  but 
regard  your  decisive  utterances  as  an  instance  of  sublime 
Christian  heroism  which  has  not  been  surpassed  in  any 
age  or  in  any  country.  It  is  indeed  an  energetic  and  re- 
inspiring  assurance  of  the  inherent  power  of  truth,  and 
of  the  ultimate  and  universal  triumph  of  justice,  humanity, 
and  freedom." 

"  We  have  reason  to  thank  the  English  common  people," 
wrote  Mr.  Rhodes  in  1 899,  "  for  their  comprehension,  right 
thinking,  and  hearty  utterance  of  sympathy,  and  for  their 
appreciation  and  admiration  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  They 
received  his  words  gladly  ;  and  while  trained  writers  criti- 
cised his  grammar,  his  'inelegant  English,'  his  backwoods 
style  of  expression,  they  grasped  the  ideas  for  which  he 
stood,  and  their  hearts  went  out  to  him." 

Lincoln's  "grammar,  inelegant  EngUsh,  and  backwoods 
expressions,"  of  which  the  cultured  classes  complained, 
have  to-day  a  place  in  English  literature  which  neither  the 


HOW   ANOTHER   MAN    ENFRANCHISED   A    RACE.       259 

ponderous  phrases  of  English  orators  nor  the  tripping  sen- 
tences of  English  writers  can  surpass.  Eor  his  words 
went  straight  to  the  root  of  things,  and  found  lodgment 
in  every  heart  that  beat  responsive  to  the  love  of  freedom 
and  the  appreciation  of  simple  and  rugged  eloquence. 
His  two-minute  speech,  on  "  the  second  great  day  at  Get- 
tysburg," as  Mr.  Mabie  fitly  characterizes  it,  at  the  dedi- 
cation of  the  National  Cemetery  at  Gettysburg  —  the 
memorial  field  of  that  great  and  decisive  battle  of  the  war  — 
was  "  notable,"  says  Mr.  Morse,  "  because  through  it  the 
literature  of  our  tongue  received  one  of  its  most  distin- 
guished acquisitions;"  even  to-day  it  rings  out,  not  to 
America  only,  but  to  all  the  world,  like  a  trumpet-note  of 
exultant  freedom,  voiced  by  a  master,  a  prophet,  and  a  man. 
"  Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago,  our  fathers  brought 
forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty 
and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created 
equal  .  .  .  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field.  .  .  .  We 
have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final 
resting-place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that 
nation  might  live.  ...  It  is  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated 
to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us  .  .  .  that  we  here 
highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain  ; 
that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  free- 
dom ;  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people, 
for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 


CHAPTER    XV. 

HOW  LIBERTY  AND  UNION   CAME  IN  MORE  LANDS  THAN   ONE. 
{From  i8b^  to  iSyo.) 

THE  "great  task,"  for  which  Lincoln  so  eloquently 
pleaded  at  Gettysburg, ,  very  nearly  approached  com- 
pletion when  the  year  1865  was  born. 

Four  years  of  terrible  war  had  brought  victory  to  the 
armies  of  the  Union  ;  foreign  hostility  and  foreign  inter- 
ference had  been  stilled  by  the  knowledge  of  Americaji 
determination  and  freedom's  wonderful  success  ;  the  Eman- 
cipation Proclamation  of  1863  cleared  the  atmosphere  and 
electrified  the  world.  The  schemes  of  Louis  Napoleon, 
who  sought  to  lead  the  powers  of  Europe  into  intervention, 
recognition,  and  "perhaps,"  as  he  suggested,  "even  more 
active  measures,"  were  beaten  down  by  the  hammer-blows  of 
Grant  and  the  magnificent  patience  and  persistence  of  Lin- 
coln. Russia  returned  a  decisive  and  instant  refusal ;  Ger- 
many bought  United  States  bonds  with  perfect  confidence, 
and  "  was  obstinately  bent  against  "  the  cause  of  the  bellig- 
erent Confederacy.  "All  parties  and  classes  in  Europe," 
wrote  Mr.  Adams  in  1865,  "are  resolved  on  a  strict  neutral- 
ity;" and  John  Bright,  in  the  fall  of  1864,  wrote  to  Charles 
Sumner,  "to  re-elect  Mr.  Lincoln  will  be  to  tell  Europe 
that  your  country  is  to  be  restored  and  slavery  destroyed." 

That  announcement  to  Europe  and  the  world  was  made 
in    November,    1864.     Abraham    Lincoln    was    re-elected 

260 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

From  RRAO^'s  Okk.inai,  I'motockaph 
"A't-rc  birth  of  our  ticiv  soil,  (he  first  A  iiiericait  " 


HOW    LIBERTY    AND    UNION    CAME.  26 1 

president  of  the  United  States  by  two  hundred  and  twelve 
electoral  votes  against  his  opponent's  twenty-one,  and  by  a 
clear  majority  of  half  a  million  in  the  popular  vote. 

"  Seldom  in  history,"  said  Emerson,  "  was  so  much 
staked  on  a  popular  vote  ;  I  suppose  never  in  history." 

"  It  is  not  wise  to  swap  horses  when  crossing  streams," 
declared  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  quaint,  homely,  direct  phrase 
that  the  people  loved. 

No  "  swapping  "  was  done  ;  the  war  was  to  be  fought  to 
a  final  and  triumphant  end  ;  and  that  end  came  when,  on  the 
ninth  of  April,  1865,  General  Lee  surrendered  his  army 
at  Appomattox  to  General  Grant.  The  South  had  fought 
nobly,  persistently,  valiantly.  Against  ever-increasing 
odds  ;  against  the  growing  hostility  of  the  world  ;  against 
privation,  suffering,  disaster,  and  loss,  they  still  fought  on, 
and  only  gave  up  the  struggle  when  they  recognized  the 
uselessness  of  continued  conflict,  the  loss  forever  of  the 
chief  privilege  for  which  they  had  fought,  and  the  slowly 
growing  conviction  that  an  undivided  union,  pledged  to  free- 
dom and  founded  on  equality,  was  stronger  and  better  than 
two  rival  and  separate  republics,  or  than  a  loose  confeder- 
acy of  States  built  on  the  theory  of  temporary  rather  than 
indissoluble  association. 

"I  can  promise  for  the  Southern  people,"  said  General 
Lee,  after  it  was  all  over,  "that  they  will  faithfully  obey 
the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States,  treat  the 
negro  with  kindness  and  humanity,  and  fulfil  every  duty 
incumbent  on  peaceful  citizens,  loyal  to  the  Constitution  of 
their  country." 

"With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln  in  his  immortal  second  inaugural,  "  with  firmness 


262       THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive 
on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  Nation's 
wounds  .  .  .  to  do  all  which  may  cherish  a  just  and  lasting 
peace  among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations." 

It  was  not  to  be  permitted  to  this  great  and  noble  man 
to  finish  the  work.  He  saw  the  end  of  the  conflict ;  he 
walked,  not  in  triumph  but  in  sadness,  through  the  streets 
of  the  fallen  capital  of  the  short-lived  Confederacy  ;  then, 
like  Moses  standing  in  view  of  the  promised  land,  he  died, 
stricken  down  by  an  assassin's  bullet  and  a  villain's  deed, 
just  when  the  South  needed  his  wisdom  and  his  love  even 
more  than  did  the  triumphant  North. 

So  the  great  man  of  the  century  passed  out  of  life  ;  and 
as  the  whole  world,  just  learning  to  appreciate  his  worth 
as,  to-day,  it  is  just  beginning  to  recognize  his  real  great- 
ness, mourned  its  loss,  the  words  of  the  American  poet, 
Willis,  written  upon  the  death  of  a  much  smaller  great 
man,  were  aptly  fitted  to  the  departure  of  this,  —  "  the  first 
American  :" 

"  For  the  stars  on  our  banner  grown  suddenly  dim, 
Let  us  weep  in  our  darkness ;    but  weep  not  for  him :  — 
Not  for  him  who,  departing,  left  millions  in  tears ; 
Not  for  him  who  has  died,  full  of  honors  and  years; 
Not  for  him  who  ascended  fame's  ladder  so  high. 
From  the  round  at  the  top  he  has  stepped  to  the  sky." 

To  me  Abraham  Lincoln  is  the  typical  man  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century.  Can  any  one  of  any  blood  in  any  land  — 
Christian  or  pagan  —  stand  as  his  equal  ? 

None  surely  will  question  his  claim  to  being  esteemed 
the  typical  American.  That  prophet-poet  who  foresaw  so 
clearly  —  Lowell,  the  highest  type  of  American  culture  — 


HOW    LIBERTY    AND    UNION    CAME.  263 

has    sketched   the    martyr-president    in   hnes    now   grown 

familiar  : 

"  Great  captains  with  their  guns  and  drums 
Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour, 

But  at  last  silence  comes ; 
These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower, 

Our  children  shall   behold  his  fame. 
The  kindly-earnest,   brave,  fore-seeing   man, 

Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American." 

After  the  bloody  arbitrament  of  war,  other  disturbances 
and  happenings  seem  small  by  comparison.  But  the  moral 
battle-field  is  often  the  sterner  and  more  stubborn  of  the 
two.  In  America  the  new  president,  Andrew  Johnson, 
and  the  Congress  were  confronted  with  the  questions  of 
reward  and  punishment,  and  of  the  methods  of  restoring 
the  rights  and  privileges  of  citizens  to  the  inhabitants  of 
the  Southern  States.  It  proved  a  complex  and  puzzling 
problem,  fertile  with  the  mistakes  of  partisan  or  fanatical 
"reconstructors,"  unrepentant  "rebels,"  and  unwise  offi- 
cials and  law-makers.  The  problem  involved  the  security 
and  safety  of  the  exhausted  South,  to  which  the  triumphant 
North  was  pledged,  but  in  which  the  emancipated  negroes 
were  made  the  factors  in  a  campaign  of  overturned  condi- 
tions, that  threw  the  lowest  order  of  demagogues  to  the 
surface,  and  awoke  the  passions  rather  than  the  patience 
of  the  land-owners  of  the  South.  It  involved  even  the 
president  of  the  United  States  himself,  as  a  border  man  of 
personal  obstinacy  and  antagonistic  tendencies,  who,  in 
seeking  to  enforce  his  own  ideas,  swung  away  from  the 
party  that  had  placed  him  in  power,  and  became  so  hostile 
to  the  majority  in  Congress  as  to  lead  to  his  impeachment. 


264      THE    STORY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

in  which   he   only  escaped   conviction   and   removal    by  a 
slender  majority. 

The  disputes  that  filled  his  presidency  hindered  the 
reconstruction  of  the  Union,  bur  law  and  order  at  last 
prevailed ;  while  the  glory  of  the  republic  and  its  true 
meaning  as  the  land  of  liberty  were  established  by  two 
Amendments  to  the  Constitution,  one  of  which,  in  1865, 
officially  established  Lincoln's  decree  of  emancipation,  by 
declaring  the  absolute  and  entire  abolition  of  slavery ; 
while  the  other,  adopted  in  1868,  guaranteed  the  protection 
of  the  law  to  all,  and  made  all  native  or  naturalized  resi- 
dents of  the  republic,  citizens  of  the  United  States.  It  was 
a  mighty  step  in  advance,  made  at  the  cost  of  thousands  of 
lives  and  millions  of  treasure,  in  the  war  waged  for  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  Union  and  the  freedom  and  equality  of  man. 

The  close  of  the  civil  war  in  the  United  States  hastened 
the  overthrow  of  that  other  monstrous  and  futile  attempt 
against  personal  and  national  liberty  in  America.  The 
ambitious  and  aristocratic  schemes  of  the  Emperor  Louis 
Napoleon,  looking  to  the  establishment  of  an  empire  in 
Mexico,  ruled  over  by  one  of  his  puppets,  and  having  for 
its  purpose  the  overthrow  of  Anglo-Germanic  supremacy  by 
the  unity  of  the  Latin  races,  were  rudely  and  utterly 
brought  to  naught  by  the  re-establishment  of  the  complete 
authority  of  the  Union.  A  veteran  army  of  victorious 
Americans  was  ready  to  enforce,  if  need  be,  the  assertion 
of  the  Monroe  doctrine,  and  to  succor  the  threatened  liber- 
ties of  Mexico.  Troops  were  massed  on  the  Mexican  bor- 
der; the  French  minister  was  notified  that  the  French 
must  leave  —  and  they  left.  Louis  Napoleon,  baffled  and 
defeated  in  an  enterprise  unpopular  even  in  France,  made 


HOW    LIBERTY   AND    UNION   CAME.  265 

a  virtue  of  necessity  ;  and  in  March,  1867,  he  withdrew  the 
French  armies  from  Mexico,  leaving  his  "assisted  Emperor" 
Maxim ihan  deserted  and  alone. 

The  end  came  speedily.  Unprotected  by  French  bay- 
onets, the  "  empire  "  of  Maximilian  crumbled  at  once  ;  and 
the  unfortunate  young  Austrian,  captured  by  the  Mexican 
patriots,  who  knew  not  the  clemency  of  their  northern 
neighbors,  was  adjudged  an  enemy  of  the  republic,  and 
promptly  put  to  death.  And  thus  the  pretentious  experi- 
ment of  a  Latin  empire  in  North  America  went  down  in 
inevitable  and  dismal  failure,  while  the  tragedy  of  Maximil- 
ian and  Carlotta  stands  as  another  terrible  warning  to 
usurpers  and  kings. 

Meantime,  across  the  sea,  Louis  Napoleon  was  having 
troubles  of  his  own,  and  was  stupidly  but  perhaps  uncon- 
sciously laying  in  his  own  path  snares  and  pitfalls,  destined 
soon  to  trap  and  destroy  him.  His  power  indeed  seemed 
supreme,  but  it  was  hollow  and  inflated ;  the  "  Sphinx  of 
the  Tuileries,"  as  that  practical  American  and  sound 
republican,  John  Hay,  called  him,  was  found  to  have,  after 
all,  but  "feet  of  clay  ;"  and  the  people  of  France  as  well  as 
of  the  world  were  gradually  finding  him  out.  His  unwise 
interference  in  Mexico ;  his  weak  and  futile  attempt  to 
"maintain  the  predominance  of  France"  in  the  Schleswig- 
Holstein  war  of  1864;  the  rise  of  a  strong  man  in  Ger- 
many ;  the  decline  of  administrative  ability  in  France  ;  the 
growing  influence  upon  the  emperor  of  corrupt  and  selfish 
adventurers,  who  sought  wealth  and  power  at  his  expense, — 
all  tended  to  weaken  and  unmask  him,  even  while  he  was 
possessed  by  his  own  pride,  and  sought  to  blind  the  people 
in  the  old  imperial  Roman  way,  by  beautifying  Paris,  and 


266      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

emphasizing  the  splendors  of  his  court.  In  the  summer  of 
1 86/,  during  the  great  International  Exhibition  at  Paris,  he 
entertained  the  princes  and  potentates  of  Europe ;  and  in 
that  splendid  "show  year"  the  Emperor  Napoleon  III. 
seemed,  like  his  wonderful  uncle  in  1810,  to  have  "attained 
the  pinnacle  of  human  greatness."  But  a  "pinnacle  "  is  a 
very  "teeterish  "  place  to  stand  on,  as  the  Emperor  Napo- 
leon in  due  time  discovered,  and  as  John  Hay,  studying 
events  in  Paris,  prophetically  expressed  it : 

"For  an  Qidipus-People  is  coming  fast 

With  swelled  feet  limping  on, 
If  they  shout  his  true  name  once  aloud 

His  false,  foul  power  is  gone. 
Afraid  to  fight  and  afraid  to  fly, 

He  cowers  in  an  abject  shiver; 
The  people  will  come  to  their  own  at  last — 

God  is  not  mocked  forever." 

On  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine  a  growing  and  unifying 
power  was  gradually  crowding  upon  France.  A  man  was 
there  rising  to  leadership  who  was  destined  to  make  Prussia 
great  and  Germany  united,  and  whose  indomitable  will  and 
"  clear  perception  "  of  his  country's  needs  were  to  usher  in 
a  new  era  in  the  history  of  Germany,  of  Europe,  and  the 
world;  for  in  October,  1862,  Count  Otto  Von  Bismarck  was 
made  prime  minister  of  Prussia  and  minister  of  foreign 
affairs;  while  in  1867  he  became  Chancellor  of  the  North 
German  Confederation  and  the  chief  figure  in  the  monu- 
mental plan  of  a  greater  and  united  Germany. 

The  North  German  Confederation  was  a  union  for  mutual 
protection  of  all  the  German  States  north  of  the  Main,  and 
was  one  of  the  results  of  the  Austro-Prussian  war  of  1866, 
sometimes    called   the   "  Seven  Weeks'  War "  for  it  was 


HOW    LIBERTY   AND   UNION    CAME.  267 

begun,  waged,  and  ended  within  that  brief  space  of  time ; 
Prussia  then  and  thus  put  an  end  to  the  long  rivalry  of 
Austria  in  German  affairs,  and  came  from  it  victor,  leader, 
and  organizer. 

Austria  had  helped  Prussia  wrest  from  Denmark  the 
Schleswig-Holstein  territory,  in  the  war  of  1864;  then 
they  quarrelled  over  the  spoils  ;  the  war  of  words  grew  to 
a  war  of  deeds;  and  the  German  States  —  North  and  South 
—  divided  into  two  parties,  as  in  America,  though  on  a 
question  of  leadership  rather  than  of  slavery.  Austria  de- 
clared that  she  was  the  upholder  of  "  the  freedom,  power, 
and  integrity  of  the  whole  German  Fatherland;"  Prussia 
also  declared  that  the  Fatherland  was  in  danger  from  the 
designs  of  Austria,  "faithless  and  regardless  of  treaties." 
And  then,  north  and  south,  the  rival  factions  of  Germany 
sprang  at  each  other's  throats. 

In  1864  a  German  inventor  had  produced  a  breech-load- 
ing musket  known  as  the  Prussian  needle-gun.  That 
terrible  invention  won  the  war  against  Austria  within  seven 
weeks.  The  South  German  armies  could  not  withstand 
the  withering  fire  of  the  deadly  needle-gun  backed  up  by 
powerful  artillery  ;  the  battle  of  Sadowa,  in  June,  1866,  was 
an  Austrian  defeat,  and  the  actual  war  campaign  of  seven 
days  led  to  the  triumph  of  Prussia  and  the  treaty  of  Prague. 

This  treaty  gave  to  Prussia  all  that  she  demanded.  To 
her  ally,  Italy,  it  gave  Venice,  and  other  Austrian  posses- 
sions in  Italy  ;  it  excluded  Austria  from  the  German  Union, 
and  brought  about  the  North  German  Confederation  of 
1867,  wnth  Prussia  as  the  head  of  the  league  and  Count 
Bismarck  as  its  directing  hand. 

The  treaty  of   Prague,  although  it   said   nothing  of   the 


268      THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

Emperor  of  France,  was  the  signal  for  the  death-knell  of 
Napoleon  III.  The  success  of  Prussia  meant  the  downfall 
of  the  empire  in  France. 

Because  he  had  kept  his  hands  off  in  the  conflict  with 
Austria,  Napoleon  suggested  to  Prussia  that  he  should  be 
rewarded  by  a  few  frontier  towns  for  being  so  good  and 
friendly. 

"Not  a  single  foot  of  German  soil,"  Bismarck  replied; 
and  Napoleon,  again  disappointed,  began  to  scheme  anew. 
He  had  met  an  opponent  before  whom  he  was  but  a  child; 
but  like  a  child,  he  went  headlong  into  folly. 

How  far  the  spirit  of  American  nationalism  and  the 
success  of  America's  dominant  sovereignty  affected  the 
other  nations  of  the  world  we  may  not  estimate  ;  few  of 
them  perhaps  would  acknowledge  this  influence;  but  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  the  forward  movement  in  the 
American  republic,  from  the  Revolution  that  gave  it  birth 
to  the  conflict  that  tested  it  and  the  acts  that  have  made 
it,  at  the  close  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  a  great  world- 
power,  has  had  an  incalculable  influence  upon  the  attitude 
and  development  of  other  nations. 

This  influence,  conscious  or  unconscious,  which  found  its 
highest  expression  in  Abraham  Lincoln,  displayed  itself 
not  only  in  the  remarkable  growth  of  emigration  from 
Europe  to  America,  but  in  the  trend  of  thought  and  action 
in  Europe.  Great  men,  wrought  upon  by  this  American 
idea  of  freedom,  sought  to  ingraft  upon  European  thought 
a  modified  democracy  or  a  finer  spirit  of  union. 

In  England,  John  Bright,  upon  whom  had  fallen  the 
mantle  of  Richard  Cobden  as  a  moral  reformer,  sought  to 
make  reform  practical  and  helpful  to  his  fellow-countrymen. 


HOW    LIBERTY   AND    UNION    CAME.  269 

He  has  been  called  the  "modern  representative  of  the 
ancient  tribunes  of  the  people  ;  "  having  "  as  his  password 
and  his  political  livelihood  "  the  welfare  of  the  common 
people  ;  "full  of  faith  that  popular  instincts  are  both  morally 
right  and  intellectually  sound  "  — the  faith  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  had.  In  France,  Adolph  Thiers,  champion  of 
liberalism  in  politics,  constantly  arraigned  the  imperialism 
of  Louis  Napoleon,  charging  him  with  being  the  enemy  and 
betrayer  of  the  French  people,  while  his  vigorous  denun- 
ciation of  the  emperor's  Mexican  policy  found  expression 
in  a  warning  of  danger  to  the  state  which  was  scarcely 
short  of  prophetic.  In  Italy,  Cavour's  influence,  even 
though  the  great  statesmen  had  gone,  still  swayed  the 
actions  of  the  liberal  and  determined  unionist  Victor  Em- 
manuel, even  when  the  ijl-timed  folly  of  the  radical  unionist 
Garibaldi,  in  1867,  almost  plunged  Italy  in  a  new  war;  while 
in  Spain,  that  noble  republican,  Emilio  Castelar,  "a  pure 
and  intelligent  statesmen,"  as  Edward  Everett  Hale  calls 
him,  in  a  land  whose  people,  through  centuries  of  despotism, 
had  been  trained  to  regard  monarchy  with  superstitious 
reverence,  strove  to  lead  his  fellow  countrymen  into  the 
broader  spirit  of  national  independence. 

His  work  was  unconsciously  fostered  by  the  unprincipled 
and  unjwpular  Queen  Isabella,  who,  in  a  reign  torn  by  fac- 
tion and  intrigue,  lost  first  the  respect,  and  then  the  confi- 
dence, of  her  subjects,  and  in  1868  was  driven  from  her 
throne  by  a  popular  revolution,  led  by  Marshal  Serrano 
and  General  Prim,  and  fostered  by  Castelar.  The  latter 
would  have  attempted  a  republic,  but  the  military  leaders 
preferred  a  constitutional  monarchy  ;  and,  unable  to  decide 
upon  any  native  prince  capable  of  ruling,  they  went  into 


2/0      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

the  "  foreign  market "  for  a  king,  first  offering  the  crown 
to  a  German,  Prince  Leopold  of  Hohenzollern,  a  relative 
of  King  William  of  Prussia. 

This  choice  angered  the  Emperor  Napoleon  and  his  un- 
wise advisors,  who  claimed  to  see,  in  this  invitation  to  a 
German  prince,  the  interference  of  Germany  in  European 
affairs,  and  especially  in  those  of  the  Latin  countries,  of 
whom  Napoleon  had  determined  to  be  the  recognized 
leader  and  head.  He  saw  no  way  of  counteracting  this 
North  German  influence  save  by  war ;  and  secretly,  but 
determinedly,  he  set  about  preparing  for  this  crisis,  and 
forcing  Germany  into  the  offensive. 

The  wisdom  of  national  union  which  was  being  worked 
out  in  Germany,  and  also  in  Italy,  where  Victor  Emmanuel 
was  gradually  bringing  the  whole  Italian  peninsula,  includ- 
ing even  the  papal  territory  of  Rome  itself,  into  a  complete 
and  consistent  union,  was  seen  also  in  Austria.  There, 
what  has  been  described  as  "a  judicious  readiness  to 
acquiesce  in  accomplished  facts,"  led  the  Emperor  of  Aus- 
tria, stunned  by  the  shock  of  Sadowa,  to  consent  to  the 
advance  proposed  by  his  new  and  more  liberal  prime  min- 
ister. Baron  Beust,  in  1867,  and  grant  constitutional  liberty 
to  Hungary,  and,  by  pronounced  concessions,  to  allay  the 
discontent  in  other  divisions  of  the  empire.  In  June,  1867, 
the  Emperor  and  Empress  of  Austria  were  crowned  at 
Pesth  as  king  and  queen  of  Hungary  ;  and  Francis  Deak, 
the  old-time  friend  and  comrade  of  the  patriot  Kossuth,  not 
only  saw  in  this  union  of  the  "  dual  kingdoms  "  a  result  of 
his  own  exertions  through  years  of  discouragement,  but 
was  himself  recognized  as  an  important  factor  in  the  pacifi- 
cation and  unity  of  Austria. 


now    LIBERTY   AND   UNION   CAME.  2/1 

All  these  movements  marked  a  distinct  advance  ;  but  the 
years  just  preceding  1870  marked,  also,  a  distinct  advance 
in  other  than  poHtical  and  national  measures.  The  world 
was  being  made  anew  by  the  march  of  invention,  improve- 
ment, and  neighborliness.  In  March,  1865,  the  first  direct 
telegram  from  India  was  received  in  England  ;  the  East 
and  West  were  thus  brought  into  instantaneous  touch ;  and 
the  successful  laying  of  the  Atlantic  cable,  in  the  summer 
of  1866,  after  five  unsuccessful  attempts,  joined  the  Old 
world  and  the  New,  and  was  the  beginning  of  that  vast 
enterprise  in  submarine  telegraphy,  which  to-day  seams  the 
oceans  and  deep  waters  of  the  world  with  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  miles  of  cable.  More  direct  and  quicker 
means  of  communication  between  Europe  and  the  East 
were  also  secured,  at  the  same  time,  by  the  successful 
completion  of  the  Suez  Canal.  Through  the  narrow  neck 
of  land  that  separates  Africa  from  Asia,  and  divides  the 
waters  of  the  Mediterranean  and  Red  Seas,  human  ingenu- 
ity for  nearly  twenty-five  hundred  years,  since  the  days  of 
the  Pharaoh  Necho,  had  been  endeavoring  to  cut  a  ditch 
for  joining  the  waters  of  Europe  and  Asia  —  the  Indian 
and  Atlantic  oceans.  This  was  done  at  last,  after  ten 
years  of  labor  in  the  shifting  sand  of  Egypt,  by  an  enter- 
prising and  indomitable  Frenchman,  Ferdinand  de  Les- 
seps.  In  February,  1867,  the  first  ship  worked  its  way 
through  the  uncompleted  canal;  and  on  the  seventeenth  of 
November,  1869,  ^^^  work  was  pronounced  complete,  and 
the  Suez  Canal  was  formally  opened  by  the  Khedive  of 
Egypt  and  representatives  of  all  the  kingdoms  of  Europe, 
when  a  fleet  of  fifty  vessels  sailed  through  the  ninety  miles 
of  canal,  —  "a  gala  day  for  all  commercial  nations." 


2/2     THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

The  year  that  witnessed  the  formal  opening  of  the  Suez 
Canal,  witnessed  also  the  completion  of  another  link  in 
world-connection.  This  was  the  Pacific  railroad,  the  first 
direct  route  of  steam  communication  across  America,  begun 
in  November,  1865,  and  completed  in  May,  1869.  The 
distance  from  Omaha  to  San  Francisco,  thus  bridged  by 
this  great  railroad  enterprise,  was  nearly  two  thousand 
miles ;  and  the  connection  by  rail  between  Omaha  and  New 
York  completed  the  direct  service  in  a  railroad  stretching 
over  more  than  three  thousand  miles  of  plain  and  prairie, 
mountain  and  river,  a  gigantic  engineering  enterprise  that 
opened  up,  to  occupation  and  development,  the  wide  and 
wonderful  regions  of  "the  Far  West." 

This  practical  development  of  the  United  States  by  suc- 
cess in  authority,  growth,  commercial  expansion,  and 
domestic  vigor,  as  displayed  between  1865  and  1870  in  the 
triumph  of  the  Union  in  1865,  in  the  acquisition  by  pur- 
chase, in  1 867,  of  Russian  America,  now  known  as  Alaska, 
in  the  wonderful  growth  of  trade  and  manufacture,  and 
the  foreign  and  interstate  commerce  after  the  success  of 
the  ocean  cable  and  the  overland  railroad,  led  other  Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples  to  consolidate  and  unite.  On  May 
first,  1867,  the  Dominion  of  Canada  was  proclaimed  as  the 
formal  union,  under  one  joint  confederation,  of  the  British 
provinces  of  North  America ;  into  this  confederation,  how- 
ever, Newfoundland  declined  to  enter;  but  in  1869  the 
territory  of  the  great  northern  syndicate,  known  as  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  was  ceded  to  the  British  crown. 
And  in  1870  this  territory  was  incorporated  in  the  Domin- 
ion, to  be  followed  later  by  British  Columbia,  the  North- 
west  Territory,   and    Manitoba,   the    only  protest  to  this 


HOW    LIBERTY   AND    UNION   CAME.  2/3 

action  being  the  armed  insurrection  of  the  French  element, 
which  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  had  chafed  under 
the  results  of  the  defeat  of  Montcalm  on  the  Plains  of 
Abraham.  The  Canadian  half-breed,  Louis  Riel,  who  led 
this  Red  .River  rebellion,  was,  however,  defeated  in  1870, 
and  Canada  was  practically  a  united  dominion  of  the  Brit- 
ish Empire.  The  success  of  federation  in  Canada  led  at 
last  to  a  closer  union  of  the  colonies  of  the  crown,  fostered 
by  concessions  and  aid  from  the  wise  queen  of  England  ; 
and  the  colonial  possessions  of  Great  Britain  grew  and 
strengthened  with  the  years.  Thus  was  another  result  of 
American  manhood  and  enterprise  exhibited  to  the  world  ; 
for  the  home-rule  system  of  colonial  government  was  the 
direct  outcome  of  the  American  Revolution,  and  the  crown 
of  Great  Britain  had  learned  wisdom  by  experience.  As 
Mr.  Mackenzie,  the  Englishman,  declares,  "  the  vast  folly 
of  1776  will  not  be  repeated." 

A  conservative  reformer  was  at  the  helm  in  England. 
William  Ewart  Gladstone  was  prime  minister,  with  so 
strong  a  support  behind  him  as  to  enable  him  to  uproot 
abuses  and  reform  methods  as  had  never  before  been  pos- 
sible ;  and  the  redress  of  the  wrongs  that  still  clung  to 
the  English  state  and  the  English  church  began  vigorously 
in  1869  and  1870.  But,  with  reforms,  the  demands  of 
those  most  benefited  grow.  The  workers  protested 
against  the  despotism  of  society  ;  the  regeneration  of  labor 
was  demanded  ;  and,  out  of  many  grievances,  by  many 
unwise  methods,  much  fanatical  friction,  and  many  threats 
of  revolution,  finally  emerged  in  1866  the  first  united 
revolt  of  labor.  Germany  and  France  had  led  in  these 
unwise  attempts  at  forcible  readjustment,  while  the  open 


2/4      THE    STORY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

antagonism  between  labor  and  capital  led  all  governments 
to  appreciate  and  seek  to  curb  the  advance  of  those  ultra 
reformers  known  under  the  general  name  of  Sociahsts. 

The  more  violent  of  these  "social  reformers"  openly- 
declared  that  the  triumph  of  their  principles  was  only  to  be 
obtained  "  by  the  violent  overturning  of  all  existing  social 
order  ;  "  and  the  plan  upon  which  they  would  "reorganize  " 
the  world  was  based  upon  such  staggering  demands  as :  no 
rent  for  land ;  no  inheritance  of  property ;  no  home  prop- 
erty for  those  who  left  it  for  other  lands ;  a  single  direct 
tax ;  compulsory  labor  for  all  ;  free  education ;  national 
ownership  of  banks,  methods  of  transportation,  manufac- 
tures, and  agriculture. 

This  would  indeed  have  overturned  society ;  and  the 
great  middle  class,  which  is  the  strength  and  sinew  of  all 
lands,  did  not  take  kindly  to  the  idea.  But  the  laboring 
classes  did  believe  in  anything  that  would  give  them  less 
work  and  more  money  ;  so,  one  of  the  earliest  outgrowths 
of  this  demand  for  the  "emancipation  of  labor"  was  the 
formation  of  trade  and  labor  unions  and  the  united  protest 
of  what  are  known  as  "strikes." 

The  leader  and  chief  agitator  of  this  labor  upheaval  was 
a  German  socialist,  resident  in  London,  named  Karl  Marx. 
In  1866  a  congress  of  delegates  of  the  "  International 
Association  of  Laborers,"  meeting  in  Geneva  in  Switzer- 
land, under  the  directing  guidance  of  Karl  Marx,  declared 
that  "the  emancipation  of  the  laboring  class  must  be 
accomplished  by  the  laboring  class  itself,  and  must  be  ac- 
complished in  every  country  where  modern  society  exists." 
It  also  recommended  the  organization  of  workingmen 
against  the  "  intrigues  of  capitalists,"  the  investigation  of 


HOW    LIBERTY   AND    UNION    CAME.  275 

the  conditions  of  the  working-classes  throughout  the 
world  ;  the  co-operation  of  workingmen  in  producing  the 
results  of  their  own  labor,  and  the  abolition  of  standing 
armies. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  strikes  and  labor  troubles, 
which  first  assuming  formidable  proportions  in  1866  by 
open-air  meetings,  processions,  and  organized  resistance  to 
capital,  have  disturbed  the  centres  of  trade,  crippled  pro- 
duction, antagonized  capital,  and  terrorized  unwilling  com- 
rades through  forty  years  of  unrest,  while,  at  the  same 
time,  reorganizing  methods,  shortening  hours  of  labor, 
establishing  improved  methods  of  supply  and  demand,  mak- 
ing capital  less  autocratic  and  labor  more  independent. 
So  every  reform,  however  hampered  it  may  be  by  fanati- 
cism, extravagance,  and  revolt,  must  in  time  benefit  more 
than  it  weakens,  and  help  on  the  sure  and  steady  progress 
of  the  world. 

The  age  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  —  the  era  of  freedom,  as 
we  may  call  it, —  which  comprised  the  ten  years  from  i860 
to  1870,  had  done  wonders  for  the  world.  Emancipation 
in  America  and  Russia,  independence  in  Italy,  union  in 
Germany  and  Austria,  liberalism  in  France  and  Spain, 
democracy,  under  the  lead  of  Gladstone  in  England,  con- 
solidation in  Canada,  and  a  closer  approach  toward  federa- 
tion by  the  progressive  English  colonies  throughout  the 
world  —  these  all  had  been  helped  on  by,  if  not  indirectly 
resulting  from,  that  uprising  of  the  people  against  outworn 
theories  and  despotic  claims  which,  inspired  by  the  ques- 
tionable demands  of  reform,  and  led  on  by  that  greatest  of 
progressive  conservatives,  Abraham  Lincoln,  had  pushed 
on  the  world  in  a  mighty  stride  toward  freedom^    While 


276     THE    STORY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

freeing  labor  from  the  shackles  of  time,  and  elevating  pro- 
duction by  advanced  methods  of  creation  and  invention,  it 
had  prepared  the  real  people  to  take  their  proper  place  as 
at  once  the  makers  of  progress,  the  developers  of  power, 
the  masters  of  ingenuity,  and  the  civilizers  of  the  world. 


"  In  giving  the  German  />eof>le  />olilicnl 
unity  Bismarck  realized  their  strongest  and 
deepest  desire  .  .  .  and  when,  as  he  ex- 
pressed it,  '  Germany  was  put  in  the  saddle,^ 
it  made  him  a  national  hero." 

Munroe  Smith. 


THE  AGE    OF   BISMARCK. 
Unity. 
(1870-1880.) 


PRINCE  yON  BISM/tRCK 

(Otto  Eduard  Leopold), 
CREATOR   OF   THE    GERMAN  EMPIRE, 
Born  SchoKhausen,  Prussia,  April  /,  1S13, 
Died  Friedrichsruh,  Prussia,  July  ^O,  /S<)8. 


w 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

WHEN    THE    WORLD    READJUSTED    ITSELF. 
{From  i8yo  to  iSyj.) 

HEN  Giuseppi  Garibaldi  —  "the  lame  lion  of  Ca- 
prera "  as  his  admirers  loved  to  call  him,  sought, 
with  the  radical  reformer  Mazzini,  to  unite  Italy  by  revo- 
lutionary methods,  his  chief  cry  was,  "  Rome  the  capital  of 
all  Italy!"  Like  all  radical  reformers.  Garibaldi  refused 
to  listen  to  wisdom  ;  and  when  in  1867,  with  his  insurgents, 
he  invaded  Roman  territory,  he  was  defeated  at  Mentana 
by  the  French  soldiers,  who  were,  with  their  bayonets, 
bolstering  up  the  temporal  power  of  the  Pope. 

"  Italy  shall  never  enter  Rome.  No,  never  !  "  declared 
the  prime  minister  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon  ;  and  as,  by 
treaty  with  France,  King  Victor  Emmanuel  was  pledged  not 
to  interfere  with  the  Papal  dominion,  it  looked  as  if  Gari- 
baldi's purpose  and  the  desire  of  Cavour  were  not  to  be 
attained  ;  for  almost  the  last  words  of  the  great  Italian 
statesman  were  to  the  effect  that  Rome  was  the  inevitable 
capital  of  United  Italy. 

Cavour,  rather  than  the  minister  of  Napoleon,  was  the 
true  prophet.  North  and  south  of  the  Papal  power  lay  free 
and  united  Italy  ;  and  every  Italian  in  the  Papal  states, 
though  a  good  Roman  Catholic,  was  a  better  Italian,  who, 
while  acknowledging  the  spiritual  sway  of  the  Pope,  denied 
his  power  as  a  temporal  prince,  and  yearned  for  union  with 

279 


28o      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

Italy.  But  French  occupation  shut  out  ItaUan  posses- 
sion. 

The  inevitable,  however,  was  to  come  in  spite  of  the 
Emperor  Napoleon.  It  was,  indeed,  to  come  because  of 
him.  The  defeat  of  Austria  in  1866,  the  formation  of  the 
North  German  Confederation  that  same  year,  and  the  mas- 
terly methods  by  which  Bismarck  made  Prussia  the  leading 
power  in  Europe,  wounded  the  pride  of  France,  and  forced 
Napoleon  to  attempt  the  crippling  of  Germany.  He  did 
this  in  his  customary  underhanded  way.  His  agents 
sought,  by  stirring  up  the  Eastern  neighbors  of  Russia, 
to  so  occupy  the  Czar  as  to  keep  him  from  interference  in 
the  West.  Then  he  tried  to  bind  Italy  and  Austria  to 
France  in  a  triple  alliance  against  Prussia  ;  but  though  it 
came  to  nothing,  both  France  and  Napoleon  believed  that 
the  nation  could,  if  need  be,  meet  and  defeat  Germany 
single-handed.  So  when,  in  1869,  Spain,  distracted  by 
domestic  troubles,  offered  its  vacant  throne  to  a  German 
prince.  Napoleon  and  the  French  government  declared  the 
negotiation  a  German  plot  ;  and  the  Emperor  ordered  his 
minister  at  Berlin  to  demand  from  King  William  of  Prussia 
that  his  relative,  the  German  prince,  should  never  accept 
the  offer  of  the  Spanish  throne. 

King  William,  of  course,  refused.  He  declared  he  had 
nothing  to  say  in  the  matter,  and  did  not  propose  to  mix 
up  in  the  affair.  Thus  forced  into  action  by  the  public 
sentiment  of  France,  which  seemed  to  demand  that  a  stop 
should  be  put  to  Germany's  growing  power.  Napoleon 
could  not  control  the  spirit  he  himself  had  raised ;  and 
weakly  yielding  to  the  popular  cry,  on  the  nineteenth  of 
July,  1 870,  he  declared  war  against  Germany. 


WHEN   THE    WORLD    READJUSTED    ITSELF.         28 1 

It  was  not  really  so  much  the  public  sentiment  of  France 
that  brought  about  this  crisis  as  of  the  French  army  and 
the  insistent  people  of  Paris,  perpetually  dissatisfied  and 
forever  creating  some  new  excitement.  They  quite  over- 
ruled the  soberer  judgment  of  France,  which  already,  by  a 
growing  minority,  was  criticising  and  opposing  the  disas- 
trous designs  of  Napoleon. 

"  On  to  Berlin  !  "  rang  the  cry  ;  and  the  armies  of  both 
nations  pushed  east  and  west  to  the  frontiers.  The  cam- 
paign that  followed  was  brief,  one-sided,  and  decisive.  Ger- 
many, for  the  first  time  fighting  as  a  united  nation,  was 
victorious  from  the  start,  thanks  to  the  effective  measures 
of  Bismarck  and  the  masterly  generalship  of  Von  Moltke. 
The  great  army  upon  which  Napoleon  relied  to  conquer 
Prussia  was  mostly  on  paper  ;  the  million  men  he  had  ex- 
pected to  lead  dwindled  to  less  than  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  ;  and  if  ever  an  army  showed  "  unpreparedness  " 
it  was  that  with  which  the  Emperor  Napoleon  in  1870  set 
out  to  face  the  perfectly  equipped  German  army  of  four 
hundred  thousand  men. 

The  issue  was  nev^er  in  doubt  :  from  the  battle  of  Worth, 
on  the  sixth  of  August,  1870,  to  the  surrender  at  Sedan,  on 
the  second  of  September,  victory  was  always  with  the  Ger- 
mans. Napoleon  was  sent  as  a  prisoner  to  the  German 
castle  at  Wilhelmshoe ;  and  two  days  after,  on  the  fourth 
of  September,  1870,  his  empire  fell,  his  ambitious  empress 
was  fleeing  to  England,  and  for  the  third  time  the  French 
Republic  was  proclaimed. 

"  Down  with  the  Empire  !  Long  live  the  Republic  !  " 
shouted  the  same  fickle  multitude  that  had  cried  "  On  to 
Berlin!"  and   "Long  live  the  Emperor!"   but  two  months 


282      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

before  ;  and  then,  speedily,  the  republic  itself  was  fighting 
for  life.  The  German  army  advanced  on  Paris  ;  the  city 
was  defended  by  the  volunteers  with  a  resistance  that  sur- 
prised the  German  invaders.  For  four  months  the  German 
besiegers  were  held  at  bay  ;  the  German  demands  for  sur- 
render were  refused ;  and  not  until  two  French  armies  of 
re-enforcement  and  relief  were  overthrown  did  the  brave 
defenders  of  Paris  yield  to  the  inevitable,  and  surrender  to 
the  German  besiegers  on  the  twenty-eighth  of  January, 
1 87 1.     And  thus  fell  the  Empire  of  Napoleon  the  Little. 

Meantime  France's  necessity  was  Italy's  opportunity. 
German  victories  called  the  French  garrison  from  Rome  ; 
and  when  Sedan  toppled  over  Napoleon,  the  army  of  Victor 
Emmanuel  assaulted  and  captured  "the  imperial  city;"  the 
secular  power  of  the  Pope  was  abolished  ;  and  Rome,  by  a 
vote  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  to  fifteen  hundred, 
united  itself  to  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  of  which,  since  the 
first  of  July,  1 87 1,  it  has  been  the  capital. 

The  overthrow  of  Napoleon  cemented  a  still  stronger 
nationality.  Above  the  renewed  patriotism  of  the  Mar- 
seillaise swelled  the  deeper  and  ever-growing  volume  of 
the  "Watch  on  the  Rhine,"  as  the  sons  of  the  Fatherland 
avenged  in  1870  the  disaster  of  1807,  and  the  son  of  Queen 
Louise  of  Prussia  held  in  captivity  the  person  and  the  pal- 
ace of  the  nephew  of  the  man  who  had  humiliated  his 
mother.  And  in  that  captured  palace  at  Versailles,  on  the 
eighteenth  of  January,  1870,  in  the  presence  of  the  sover- 
eign princes  and  the  representatives  of  the  free  cities  of 
Germany,  William,  king  of  Prussia,  was  proclaimed  and 
crowned  William  I.,  Emperor  of  Germany,  and  German 
unity  had  been  effected  at  last. 


WHEN   THE   WORLD    READJUSTED    ITSELF.  283 

But  German  unity  was  born  almost  in  the  throes  of 
French  anarchy.  Defeated,  dispirited,  and  crushed,  France, 
through  its  veteran  patriot,  Thiers,  on  the  twenty-sixth  of 
February,  1871,  agreed  to  the  peace  of  Versailles,  as  im- 
posed by  the  imperious  Bismarck.  By  this  she  surrendered 
to  Germany  the  Rhine  provinces  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine 
(five  thousand  square  miles  of  territory  and  a  million  and  a 
half  inhabitants),  and  agreed  to  pay  to  Germany  one  billion 
dollars  as  indemnity  for  making  war.  This  peace  was  rati- 
fied on  the  tenth  of  May  following,  by  the  treaty  of  Frank- 
fort on  the  Main,  by  which,  as  the  results  of  the  Franco- 
German  war  of  1870,  the  military  power  of  France  was 
destroyed,  a  new  western  boundary  for  Germany  was  forced 
from  France,  and  the  political  unity  of  Germany  was  ac- 
knowledged and  realized. 

Before  all  this  was  completed,  however,  anarchy  and  ter- 
ror once  more  held  the  unfortunate  city  of  Paris  in  their  grip. 
On  the  eighteenth  of  March,  1871,  the  agitators,  radicals, 
revolutionists,  and  socialists  in  Paris  denied  the  new 
republic's  right  to  surrender,  and  barricading  the  city, 
declared  the  rule  of  the  Commune  —  the  people  —  estab- 
lishing on  the  ruin  of  the  empire  the  rule  of  the  armed 
mob,  which  very  nearly  desolated  the  beautiful  city,  and 
was  only  suppressed  on  the  twenty-eighth  of  May  by  the 
bombardment,  assault,  and  capture  of  the  city  by  the  com- 
bined forces  of  the  army  of  the  republic  and  her  German 
conquerors. 

Upon  this  final  overthrow,  the  third  Republic  of  France 
rose  to  power.  The  veteran  Thiers,  patriot,  and  firm  oppo- 
nent of  Napoleon,  was  elected  president  ;  and  the  nation  set 
itself  so  nobly  and  heroically  to  keep  the  treaty  with  Ger- 


284     THE   STORY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

many,  that,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  world,  before  the 
time  limit  fixed  by  the  treaty,  the  whole  of  the  vast  obliga- 
tions to  Germany  had  been  fulfilled,  and  "the  heel  of  the 
conqueror  "  was  removed  from  French  territory.  It  was 
another  instance  of  the  indomitable  will  of  the  people,  so 
often  displayed  in  the  vigorous  Nineteenth  Century. 

The  downfall  of  Napoleon,  the  rise  of  the  French  Re- 
public, the  establishment  of  the  German  Empire,  and  the 
unity  of  England,  well  characterized  by  an  English  observ^er 
as  "the  astonishing  events  of  1870,"  affected  the  whole  of 
Europe,  and  changed  the  relations  that  had  been  so  long 
based  upon  rivalry  and  antagonisms  to  a  condition  of  "  pro- 
found peace" — a  peace  which  continued  for  years  in 
Europe,  and  led  all  nations  to  acknowledge  the  leadership 
and  masterly  ability  of  the  great  man  of  the  age,  Bismarck, 
the  power  behind  the  throne  in  Germany. 

This  remarkable  man  —  the  creator  o'f  German  unity  — 
applied  himself  to  the  work  of  making  Germany  strong  and 
great  as  well  as  united. 

"The  unity  of  Germany,"  he  had  declared  in  1862,  "is 
to  be  brought  about,  not  by  speeches  nor  by  the  votes  of 
majorities,  but  by  blood  and  iron." 

Proceeding  upon  that  "stalwart"  and  often  terrible  creed 
of  power  by  force,  Bismarck  had  overturned  European 
politics.  He  established  the  German  empire  "under  the 
military  predominance  of  Prussia;  "  he  made  Germany  the 
leading  power  of  Europe ;  because  of  his  methods,  the  Napo- 
leonic Empire  had  been  finally  overthrown,  Italy  was  united, 
and  the  temporal  power  of  the  Pope  destroyed ;  the  first 
enduring  republic  in  France  had  been  established,  and  the 
foreign  policy  of  Europe  completely  altered ;  methods  and 


WHEN   THE   WORLD    READJUSTED   ITSELF.         285 

systems  of  war  were  changed ;  while,  because  of  the  very 
force  that  Bismarck  had  proclaimed  as  necessary  to  the  de- 
fence and  protection  of  nations,  peace  rather  than  war  has 
been  adopted  as  the  thing  to  strive  for ;  and  public  senti- 
ment, educated  by  representative  assemblies  and  the  power 
of  the  press,  has  to  a  great  extent,  as  Professor  Seignobos 
declares,  "  paralyzed  the  personal  will  of  sovereigns  and 
ministers,  and  put  more  pressure  on  governments  to  keep 
them  from  war." 

In  September,  1872,  the  Emperors  of  Germany,  Austria, 
and  Russia  with  their  ministers  met  at  Berlin,  and  pledged 
themselves  to  maintain  the  peace  of  Europe,  and  especially 
to  keep  France  from  war. 

"  Europe  recognizes  the  German  Empire  as  the  bulwark 
of  general  peace,"  Bismarck  declared  ;  and  in  thus  isolating 
France  and  England  from  the  rest  of  Europe,  the  great 
chancellor  displayed  his  ability,  statesmanshi}),  and  power. 

France,  however,  though  storing  up  a  sleeping  vengeance 
against  her  conqueror,  Germany,  needed  all  her  strength  to 
rebuild  and  strengthen  her  own  edifice  without  seeking  a 
new  war;  and  England,  great  at  home  and  abroad,  had  little 
wish  to  mix  up  in  the  confusing  caldron  of  European  poli- 
tics. In  commerce  and  industry  Great  Britain,  in  1870, 
ruled  supreme.  Under  the  lead  of  Gladstone,  peace  was 
the  main  object  of  the  United  Kingdom,  —  peace  and  com- 
mercial development;  and  he  who  has  been  called  "the 
greatest  living  master  of  finance,"  safely  steered  his  country 
through  all  the  dangers  of  home  and  foreign  disturbance  to 
the  proud  position  of  the  leading  force  in  the  Christianizing 
and  civilizing  of  the  world. 

Of  course,  good  Americans  may  be  inclined  to  dispute 


286      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

this  pre-eminence  ;  but,  like  France,  the  Republic  of  the 
United  States  had  too  much  to  occupy  herself  at  home  in 
healing  the  wounds  and  covering  the  scars  of  civil  war  to 
assume  any  position  of  leadersliip  beyond  her  ocean  borders. 
These  borders  in  1870  were  stronger  and  better  de- 
veloped than  ever.  The  supremacy  of  the  American  mer- 
chant marine  had,  indeed,  been  lost  in  the  waste  of  civil 
war;  but  the  internal  improvement  and  domestic  growth  of 
the  great  American  Republic  were  astonishing.  In  railways 
and  manufactures,  in  crops  and  productions,  this  growth  was 
steady  and  enormous,  while  the  commercial  interests  at 
home  and  abroad,  after  the  close  of  the  civil  war,  increased 
mightily.  In  the  five  years  between  1870  and  1875  the  ex- 
ports and  imports  more  than  doubled  in  value  over  those  of 
the  five  years  between  i860  and  1865;  in  each  case  —  ex- 
ports as  well  as  imports  —  the  totals  crowded  the  limit  of 
three  billions  of  dollars ;  while,  for  the  corresponding  periods 
of  five  comparative  years,  immigration  into  the  United 
States  increased  nearly  threefold  —  the  total  of  "  new 
citizens"  from  abroad  between  1870  and  1875  reaching 
nearly  to  two  millions. 

Guided  by  the  misfortunes  of  the  United  States  because 
of  uncertain  confederation,  state  sovereignty,  and  diverse 
laws,  the  new  Dominion  of  Canada  centralized  its  power 
in  its  parliament  at  Ottawa,  which  set  the  limits  of  the 
duties  and  powers  of  the  different  Provincial  assemblies. 
At  the  head  of  the  Dominion  stood  the  governor-general, 
appointed  for  a  term  of  five  years  by  the  queen.  But 
the  governor-general  is  scarcely  a  political  power ;  he  can 
do  nothing  without  the  consent  of  his  council,  which,  in 
its  turn,  is  responsible  to  the  people ;  senators  and  judges 


WHEN   THE    WORLD    READJUSTED   ITSELF.  287 

are  appointed  for  life  ;  and  Canada's  provincial  government, 
thanks  to  the  American  Revolution  and  England's  increase 
in  wisdom,  is  the  most  stable  and  nearest  perfection  of  any 
possible  colonial  government.  It  is,  indeed,  but  a  short 
step  from  this  confederation  to  national  independence, 
should  the  Dominion  ever  desire  it. 

On  the  southern  side  of  the  American  border  the  repub- 
lics of  Central  and  South  America  were  slowly  feeling  their 
way  to  stability.  Security  comes  haltingly  when  passion 
is  mistaken  for  patriotism,  and  the  countrymen  of  Bolivar 
and  San  Martin  had  not  yet  schooled  themselves  in  the 
calmer  methcxls  of  liberty.  Political  and  sectarian  differ- 
ences provoked  both  feud  and  faction,  and  the  ruling 
power  was  not  always  the  recognized  one ;  revolts  and 
revolutions  were  frequent ;  and  the  growth  of  the  southern 
republics  in  self-government  was  retarded  by  the  atmos- 
phere of  passion  and  the  environments  of  suspicion,  in 
which  the  twin  oak-trees  of  hberty  and  law  can  never 
flourish  sturdily. 

The  foremost  South  American  of  this  period  of  unrest 
was  Domingo  Sarmiento  of  Buenos  Ayres.  Realizing  that 
the  greatest  civilizer  was  education,  and  that  upon  the 
future  rather  than  the  past  depended  the  progress  of  his 
race,  this  philanthropic  statesman  devoted  his  life  to  eman- 
cipating South  America  from  ignorance,  superstition,  and 
greed.  It  was  not  an  easy  task.  Throughout  South  Amer- 
ica presidents  were  dictators,  and  dictators  were  tyrants  ; 
but  Sarmiento,  through  many  discouragements,  defeats,  and 
dangers,  held  steadily  to  his  purpose.  Envy  and  slander 
could  not  dull  his  enthusiasm  ;  exile  and  injustice  could 
not  stay  his  endeavors.     The  Argentine  RepubUc  at  last 


SiAT£flOUKAl 


288      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

elected  him  its  president  in  1865,  and  his  administration 
of  four  years  is  known  as  the  "golden  age"  of  Argentina. 

The  other  South  American  republics  in  time  followed 
his  methods,  if  not  his  lead  ;  and,  gradually,  the  "  real  army 
of  liberation"  —  the  farmers,  the  artisans,  and  the  school- 
masters of  South  America  —  began  the  thankless  but  glori- 
ous task  of  redeeming  and  uniting  the  races  which  Spain 
for  so  many  years  had  held  in  thrall. 

In  this  enfranchisement,  Anglo-Saxon  and  German  en- 
terprise, as  well  as  native  energy,  has  borne  a  mighty 
share ;  and  Wheelwright  and  Meiggs  and  Lowe,  leaders 
in  material  and  industrial  growth,  are  more  to  be  remem- 
bered as  benefactors  of  South  America  than  Francia, 
Lopez,  and  Rosas, —  tyrants  and  dictators,  —  whose  selfish 
ambitions  well  nigh  crippled  the  progress  of  their  home- 
land. 

In  Mexico,  the  northern  outpost  of  Spanish  America, 
three  hundred  revolutions  tell  the  stormy  story  of  an 
advance  toward  true  national  freedom,  which  began  at  last, 
when,  in  1874,  the  amended  liberal  constitution  was  ac- 
cepted as  the  organic  law  of  the  republic,  and  the  rise  of 
Porfirio  Diaz  led  the  way  to  order  and  prosperity. 

Brazil,  a  sort  of  absolute  constitutional  empire,  if  one  can 
understand  so  manifest  an  anomaly,  was  held  in  peace  and 
power  by  the  wise  judgment  and  liberal  rule  of  that  bene- 
ficent monarch,  Dom  Pedro  II.,  who  in  1871  made  his  em- 
pire a  free  nation  by  the  emancipation  of  every  child  born 
of  slave  parents  and  of  all  slaves  held  by  the  state.  In 
this  philanthropic  advance  Dom  Pedro  wisely  recognized 
and  accepted  the  liberal  spirit  of  his  day,  even  though  his 
wisdom  led  to  his  own  undoing ;  for  it  was  decreed  by  fate 


WHEN   THE    WORLD    READJUSTED   ITSELF.  289 

that  neither  king  nor  emperor  should  long  exist  in  the 
liberty-loving  air  of  South  America. 

The  liberty-loving  air  of  America  was  furnishing  strength- 
ening ozone  to  other  struggling  lands.  When,  in  1835, 
the  Dutch  burghers,  farmers,  or  "  boers,"  of  Cape  Colony, 
dissatisfied  with  the  liberal  policy  of  Great  Britain  towards 
the  black  nations  of  Africa,  went  northward  on  their  "  exo- 
dus," or  "great  trek"  as  it  was  called,  they  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  the  Dutch  republics  of  Africa  known  as  the 
Transvaal  and  the  Orange  Free  State.  In  1852  the  Boers 
of  the  Transvaal  secured  their  independence,  and  two  years 
later  the  Orange  Free  State  was  established  in  its  separate 
nationality.  Both,  however,  were  slave-holding  republics, 
torn  with  dissensions,  and  so  hostile  to  the  growth  of  British 
power  in  South  Africa  that,  finally,  the  peace  of  that  whole 
"New  World"  was  threatened,  industry  suffered,  and  the 
slave-trade  flourished.  At  last  England,  in  1876,  protested 
and  finally  acted  ;  but  the  sturdy  stand  for  independence 
and  nationality,  even  in  the  midst  of  feud  and  faction, 
showed  how  deeply  the  love  of  liberty  was  ingrained  in  the 
Dutch  nature,  which,  stubbornly  independent,  has  done  so 
much  for  the  personality  of  nations  and  of  men. 

The  persistence  of  Europe,  however,  was  doing  more  in 
Africa  than  schooling  the  Boers  in  independence  ;  it  was 
unlocking  the  mystery  of  the  Dark  Continent,  and  preparing 
the  way  for  the  regeneration  and  development  of  that  un- 
known corner  of  the  world.  When  David  Livingstone,  in 
1856,  had  emerged  from  the  unknown  after  an  absence  of 
sixteen  years  and  a  tramp  of  eleven  thousand  miles,  he 
brought  with  him  the  key  to  Africa.  For  his  report  opened 
the  eyes  of  the  world  to  the  commercial  value  of  Africa  as 


290     THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

well  as  its  spiritual  needs,  and  explorer  and  missionary  fol- 
lowed the  path  that  Livingstone  had  blazed  ;  Du  Chaillu 
the  Frenchman ;  Burton,  Speke,  and  Grant,  the  English- 
men ;  Rohefs  and  Von  der  Decken  the  Germans  ;  Baker  and 
Walker  and  Reade  the  Englishmen  ;  Schweinfurth  the  Rus- 
sian ;  Mohr  and  Nachtigal  the  Germans ;  Stanley  the  Ameri- 
can ;  De  Brazza  the  Italian ;  and  Serpa  Pinto  the  Portuguese, 
—  had,  in  the  twenty  years  between  Livingstone's  first  re- 
ports and  his  own  death  "  in  the  harness,"  discovered,  ex- 
plored, and  opened  the  way  for  commerce  into  the  long 
locked  regions  of  the  oldest  of  civilized  and  latest  of  regen- 
erated lands.  From  the  days  of  the  Phoenician  explorers, 
seven  hundred  years  before  Christ,  to  those  of  Livingstone 
and  Stanley,  nineteen  hundred  years  after  Christ,  Africa 
had  remained  a  mystery;  but  by  1875  the  genius  and  ro- 
mance of  exploration,  pushed  forward  by  the  restless  energy 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  had  opened  the  country  to  the 
eyes  of  the  world,  and  the  story  of  exploration  grew  into 
the  story  of  occupation.  By  that  date  it  was  estimated 
that  the  twelve  million  square  miles  of  African  area  sup- 
ported a  population  of  at  least  two  hundred  millions  of 
people ;  and  the  nations  of  Europe  disputed  with  the  fol- 
lowers of  Mahomet  for  occupation,  interest,  and  influence. 

As  the  disappearance  and  loss  of  Livingstone  in  Africa 
led  Stanley  on  his  relief  expedition,  and  opened  a  new  era 
in  African  development,  so  in  the  Tartarean  darkness  and 
cold  around  the  Pole,  the  loss  of  Sir  John  Franklin,  in 
1S45,  and  the  forty  relief  expeditions  sent  out  by  England 
and  America  to  seach  for  and  succor  him,  led  to  the  more 
determined  exploration  of  the  northern  ice-bound  seas. 
The  introduction  of  steam  into  navigation   rendered    this 


WHEN   THE    WORLD    READJUSTED    ITSELF.  291 

task  somewhat  easier  ;  and  the  English  expedition  of  1875, 
when,  with  two  powerful  screw-steamers,  Captain  Nares 
forced  his  way  through  the  ice  floes  to  the  very  edge  of 
the  paleocrystic  sea,  and  stormed  the  barriers  of  the  vast 
Polar  pack,  at  the  very  highest  northern  altitudes  yet 
reached  by  civilized  man,  was  the  advance  of  that  modern 
polar  discovery  which,  before  the  close  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  had  very  nearly  forced  the  secrets  of  the  Pole. 
So,  too,  the  famous  expedition  of  the  "  Challenger,"  under 
the  same  valiant  Captain  Nares,  between  the  years  1872 
and  1 874,  pushed  into  the  lifeless  regions  of  the  Antarctic, 
and  "challenged"  its  mysteries.  The  close  of  the  third 
quarter  of  the  investigating  Nineteenth  Century  marked  a 
mighty  increase  in  the  world's  knowledge  of  its  own  hidden 
places  and  its  own  vast  possibilities. 

What  exploration  was  doing  for  geographical  and  an- 
thropological knowledge,  science  was  equalling.  By  1875 
the  results  of  seventy  years  of  research,  investigation, 
effort,  and  ingenuity,  were  telling  mightily  in  production 
and  improved  methods.  The  two  greatest  forces  of  modern 
civilization,  steam  and  electricity,  had  made  and  were  mak- 
ing enormous  strides  towards  practical  perfection.  Land 
and  sea  were  crossed  and  zigzagged  with  railway  tracks  and 
steamship  routes.  The  carrying  facilities  of  the  world 
were  vastly  increased  ;  and  the  telegraph  system  had  grown 
to  such  useful  proportions  that,  in  the  year  1S70  alone, 
nearly  fifty  million  "telegrams"  were  sent  over  the  wires 
and  cables  of  this  wonderful  electrical  marv-el. 

In  other  lines  of  human  achievement  the  three-score 
years  and  ten  of  the  century's  life  had  wrought  revolutions 
as  notable  and  as  valuable  as  were  those  which  had  remod- 


292      THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

elled  politics  and  remade  states.  It  literature  and  art,  in 
science  and  research,  in  learning  and  enlightenment,  in  a 
growing  familiarity  with  great  questions,  and  a  deeper  con- 
sciousness of  vast  possibilities,  the  whole  world  was  broad- 
ening into  a  more  intelligent  productiveness,  learning  more 
clearly  the  how  and  the  why,  as  well  as  the  where  and  the 
when,  of  many  a  great  world-problem  or  a  long-hidden  mys- 
tery. Nineteenth  Century  science  has  proved  the  "open 
sesame  "  to  many  a  darkened  treasure-cave. 

In  1870  more  than  one  fearless  investigator  stood  before 
the  sealed  door  of  the  cave  with  the  "open  sesane  "  on  his 
lips.  Darwin,  with  his  bold  "Origin  of  Species,"  and  still 
bolder  "  Descent  of  Man  ;  "  Spencer,  with  his  "  Sociology  " 
and  his  modern  system  of  philosophy  ;  Tyndall,  with  his 
wonderful  studies  in  heat  and  light,  —  actually  stormed  the 
treasure-house  of  nature,  and  "  looted  "  it  of  mysteries  and 
facts.  In  France,  Renan,  breaking  away  from  what  he 
deemed  "the  barrenness  of  the  scholastic  method,"  was 
startling  the  conventional,  and  upsetting  old  theories  with 
a  vigor  and  realism  that  were  almost  brutal  in  their  bril- 
liancy ;  while  the  struggle  for  political  and  national  unity 
in  Germany  increased  the  numbers  and  influence  of  the 
students  and  thinkers  of  the  Fatherland,  to  whose  labors 
the  people  of  Germany,  loyal  to  their  own,  responded  with 
a  growing  respect  and  a  deepening  conviction.  In  every 
civilized  land  the  years  between  1870  and  1875  displayed 
not  only  a  growth  of  intellectual  vigor  in  the  producers, 
but  a  corresponding  growth  of  appreciation  in  the  people. 
It  was  in  1872  that  Wagner  settled  at  Bayreuth,  and  there 
founded  the  theatre  in  which  he  broke  away  from  old 
methods,  and   revolutionized    the    dramatic  music  of    the 


WHEN    THE    WORLD    READJUSTED    ITSELF.  293 

world  ;  it  was  in  1876  that  Emerson  published  his  poems 
"  Brahma  "  and  "  The  Over  Soul  "  —  so  packed  with 
thought,  as  Professor  Bates  observes,  "that  to  the 
thoughtless  they  seem  nonsense;"  and  it  was  in  1873 
that  Carlyle,  long  neglected  as  a  "freak,"  was  sufficiently 
recognized  by  his  contemporaries  as  to  warrant  the  publi- 
cation of  his  complete  works;  it  was  in  1873  that  Walt 
Whitman,  invalided  by  his  self-sacrificing  hospital  work 
during  the  Civil  War,  retired  in  poverty  to  Camden,  "  will- 
ing," as  he  said,  "  to  wait  to  be  understood."  And  yet 
these  four  "freaks,"  or  "  fanatics,"  as  unthinking  people 
called  them,  are  to-day  acknowledged  as  moving  powers  in 
modern  thought.  More  than  any  other  man  did  Wagner 
directly  influence  "the  music  of  the  future;"  Whitman, 
so  John  Burroughs  declares,  will  be  "an  enormous  feeder 
to  the  coming  poetic  genius  of  his  country  ; "  while,  as  for 
those  "twins  of  thought,"  Carlyle  and  Emerson,  it  may 
to-day  be  accepted  that  they  were,  as  Mr.  Garnett  declares, 
"  the  two  men  who  had  the  largest  share  in  forming  the 
minds  from  which  the  succeeding  generation  was  to  take 
its  complexion."  "Rarely,"  he  adds  "have  nations  been 
more  fortunate  in  their  instructors  than  the  two  great 
English-speaking  peoples  during  the  age  of  Carlyle  and 
Emerson." 

"A  man  perfects  himself  by  working,"  said  Carlyle; 
"foul  jungles  are  cleared  away;  fair  seed  fields  rise  in- 
stead, and  stately  cities  ;  and,  withal,  the  man  himself 
fast  ceases  to  be  jungle  and  foul  unwholesome  desert 
thereby." 

There  was  inspiration  even  for  the  thoughtless  in  this, 
as  there  was  in  the  simple  but  stirring  lines  of  Emerson  : 


294      THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

"The  men  are  ripe  of  Saxon  kind 
To  build  an  equal  state, — 
To  take  the  stature  from  the  mind, 
And  make  of  duty  fate. 

For  He  that  worketh  high  and  wise, 

Nor  pauses  in  his  plan, 
Will  take  the  sun  out  of  the  skies 

Ere  freedom  out  of  man." 

In  the  heart  of  Europe,  men  not  altogether  of  "  Saxon 
kind," — a  sturdy  nation  of  mountaineers  and  farmers, — 
were  holding  their  own  in  1870,  and  "perfecting  them- 
selves by  working,"  were  also  making  "of  duty,  fate,"  as 
they  set  an  example  in  conservative  freedom.  "It  would," 
says  Professor  Siegnobos,  "  be  a  mistake  to  measure  the 
interest  of  Switzerland's  history  by  the  size  of  her  territory. 
This  little  country  fills  a  large  place  in  the  history  of  the 
existing  institutions  of  Europe."  The  cantons  of  Switzer- 
land, indeed,  furnish  a  practical  example  of  what,  in  a  land 
girdled  by  absolutism,  or  bordered  by  insurrection,  popular 
sovereignty  can  accomplish  ;  for,  through  all  the  wars  and 
revolutions,  the  overthrow  of  states,  and  the  fall  of  dynas- 
ties since  18 14,  the  Swiss  people  have  steadily  held  their 
own  as  the  oldest  existing  republic.  In  1874  a  new  and 
yet  more  liberal  constitution  was  adopted  by  this  liberty- 
loving  people,  which  led  to  something  unheard  of  in 
Europe  —  direct  government  by  the  citizens  of  the  repub- 
lic ;  a  distinct  advance ;  for,  as  Professor  Siegnobos  de- 
clares, "  no  civilized  people  had  yet  gone  so  far  in  this 
path." 

Not  even  free  America  ;  for  there,  in  1870  and  1875,  the 
problem  of  reconstruction  still  hampered  the  work  of  politi- 


WHEN   THE    WORLD    READJUSTED   ITSELF.         295 

cal  enfranchisement,  and  created  for  over  eight  years  — 
from  1868  to  1876  —  what  Doctor  Edward  Channing  char- 
acterizes as  "a  period  of  political  uncertainty."  Grant,  the 
great  soldier  of  the  Civil  War,  had,  in  1868,  been  elected 
president  of  the  United  States  ;  he  had  been  re-elected  in 
1872  ;  and  though  he  gave  a  vigorous  and  often  statesman- 
like administration,  the  speculative  spirit  was  abroad,  and 
the  growth  of  great  fortunes,  quickly  made,  and  often  as 
quickly  dissipated,  introduced  a  new  and  serious  feature 
into  American  life  —  the  money-power.  Cities,  increasing 
rapidly,  were  careless  of  their  finances,  and  greed  and 
corruption  tainted  many  a  fair  name.  Unwise  and  short- 
sighted policy  in  the  efforts  to  make  men  out  of  the 
enfranchised  race  led  to  persecution  in  the  South  and 
unreasoning  criticism  in  the  North,  so  that  injustice  and 
disorder  had  frequently  to  be  met  and  punished. 

All  reformatory  work,  however,  is  slow,  and  reconstruc- 
tion and  security  had  to  struggle  with  terrorism  and  fac- 
tion ;  but,  gradually,  a  better  state  of  things  was  evolved, 
and  by  1875  the  nation  had  not  only  accepted  but  indorsed 
the  methods  for  cementing  anew  the  lasting  union  of  the 
American  Republic. 

Abroad,  the  republic  grew  in  strength  and  importance ; 
and  when  by  arbitration,  in  1 871,  the  Treaty  of  Washington 
amicably  settled  the  unforgotten  grudge  against  England 
for  her  open  aid  to  the  Confederate  States,  and  through 
the  Emperor  of  Gennany,  the  northwestern  boundary  dis- 
pute with  England  was  settled  in  favor  of  the  United 
States,  the  world  awoke  to  the  real  importance  and  strength 
of  the  great  new  power  across  the  western  sea. 

Thus  were  the  people  of  Saxon  blood  —  the  three  great 


296     THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

Anglo-Germanic  nations  of  the  world  —  drawing  nearer  to- 
gether. Bismarck,  the  guiding  hand  of  Germany,  the  typical 
man  of  this  age  of  union  through  strength,  was  instrumental 
in  thus  arbitrating  the  disputes  of  England  and  America, 
while,  at  the  same  time,  unifying  and  strengthening  the 
Empire  by  his  process  of  national  evolution.  That  process 
led  in  1872  to  a  direct  and  open  rupture  with  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  a  complicated  struggle  between  the  be- 
lievers in  Bismarck  and  the  followers  of  the  Pope,  known 
now  in  German  history  as  "  the  Culturkampf  "  —  the  fight 
for  civilization. 

But  in  1875  Bismarck  won  ;  for  in  that  year  he  declared 
that  his  "armor  was  complete,"  and  by  a  union  of  forces 
with  the  liberals  and  the  progressives  he  turned  the  tide 
his  way,  and  organized  the  new  empire  on  the  broad  national 
lines  he  had  himself  desired.  "  Bismarck's  Party,"  as  his 
opponents  called  the  workers  for  real  German  unity, 
triumphed,  and  the  foundations  of  empire  were  well  and 
strongly  laid  by  the  strongest  man  of  his  day  —  the  master 
mind  of  that  Age  of  Unity  —  the  decade  between  1870 
and  1880. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

THE   LAST    "ONE-MAN    POWER*'    OF    THE    CENTURY. 

(From  i8yj  to  1880.) 

OTTO  VON  BISMARCK,  Chancellor  and  Prince  of 
the  Empire,  —  he  had  been  made  Prince  Bismarck  in 
1871,  —  fought  and  won  in  1875  his  struggle  for  civiliza- 
tion—  the  Culturkampf.  He  had  firmly  established  the 
Empire,  over-riding  sometimes  the  desires  and  wishes  of 
his  "imperial  master,"  William  the  Emperor.  Things 
seemed  to  be  going  his  way  ;  his  statesmanship  and  power 
were  recognized  even  by  his  opponents  and  enemies  ;  and  he 
was  easily,  as  the  third  quarter  of  the  Nineteenth  Century 
opened,  the  foremost  man  in  the  world.  In  spite  of  a  cen- 
tury of  democratic  progress,  it  seemed  as  if  absolutism  and 
the  one-man  power  had  again  fastened  its  firm  grip  on  the 
world,  and  that  German  unity  and  nationality  seemed  to 
have  been  accomplished  at  the  expense  of  German  inde- 
pendence and  manhood. 

There  were,  even  in  Germany,  those  who  held  this  view; 
and  those  who  desired  equality  and  freedom  quite  as  much 
as  German  nationality  began  to  agitate  and  organize. 
While  Bismarck  was  waging  his  "Culturkampf"  he  was 
shrewd  enough  to  see  that  the  friends  of  freedom  and 
equality  were  good  allies  for  his  side;  and  he  so  favored  for 
the  moment  the  Liberal  and  Progressive  parties,  with  whom 
he  had  really  little  sympathy,  and  even  the  Socialists  whom 

297 


298      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

he  hated,  as  to  give  him  strength  and  victory.  But,  w^hen 
he  had  triumphed,  he  made  few  concessions  to  his  Uberal 
allies  ;  he  rejected  their  demands  for  political  power, 
strengthened  the  army,  and  passed  stringent  laws  against 
all  "opponents  of  the  government." 

This  action  especially  displeased  the  radical  reformers  of 
Germany,  who  were  studying  the  affairs  of  the  world,  and 
believed  that  the  equality  and  freedom  of  man  was  the 
spirit  of  the  age.  The  Socialists  of  Germany,  largely  drawn 
from  the  working  classes,  under  the  guidance  of  able  leaders, 
strengthened  their  organization,  and  boldly  set  themselves 
to  fight  the  all  powerful  chancellor  and  prince.  When  he 
wished  to  check  their  agitation  by  laws  against  the  liberty 
of  the  press,  the  usually  willing  parliament,  or  "Reichstag," 
of  Germany  would  not  agree ;  but  when  some  hot -heads 
and  fanatics  of  the  radical  Sociahsts  twice  attempted  the 
life  of  the  old  emperor,  the  opinions  of  the  Reichstag 
changed,  and  Bismarck  was  able  to  get  the  upper  hand 
again,  and  secure  the  passage  of  strong  laws  against  "the 
subversive  efforts  of  the  Social  Democrats."  This  was  in 
1878 ;  and  for  a  time,  at  least,  the  progress  of  socialism  was 
checked.  Then  it  was  that  Bismarck  broke  off  from  his 
liberal  connections,  and  joined  hands  with  the  conservative 
and  reactionary  forces,  even  going  back  with  them  to  certain 
of  the  old  traditions  of  the  despotic  kings  of  Prussia,  "  assist- 
ing" rather  than  elevating  the  "most  numerous  and  least 
instructed  class,"  and  endeavoring  to  make  a  paternal 
rather  than  a  self-helpful  government. 

In  England,  also,  at  this  tim-e,  a  similar  reactionary  policy 
seemed  to  be  in  the  ascendant.  The  Liberal  party,  under  the 
lead  of  Gladstone,  lost  for  a  time  its  control ;  the  Conserv- 


THE    EAST    "ONE-MAN    POWER"   OF   THE   CENTURY.     299 

ative  party,  with  its  brilliant  but  unreliable  chief,  Disraeli 
—  known,  after  1 876,  as  Lord  Beaconsfield  —  came  into 
power,  and  sought  to  establish  three  prime  factors,  hardly 
consistent  in  the  democracy  into  which  Great  Britain  had 
at  last  grown.  These  were  the  throne,  the  house  of  lords, 
and  the  Established  Church.  Disraeli  admired  Bismarck, 
and  wished  to  play  a  similar  part  in  English  history.  So 
he  set  out  to  accomplish  this  by  increasing  the  national 
power  of  England,  and,  "in  the  name  of  British  honor,"  to 
adopt  a  warlike  policy  which  should  undo  the  popular 
reforms  of  Gladstone. 

To  divert  attention  from  home  matters,  he  followed  the 
course  of  the  two  Napoleons,  and  sought  for  glory  abroad. 
This  he  found  in  strengthening  the  union  of  the  British  col- 
onies with  the  crown,  expanding  the  borders  of  the  kingdom, 
and  becoming  head  nurse  to  the  "  sick  man  "  of  Europe. 

His  first  step  was  to  unite  the  parent  nation  and  all  its 
dependencies  in  one  mighty  and  solid  empire.  Gladstone's 
policy  tended  toward  a  practical  if  not  absolute  separation 
of  the  colonies  from  the  mother  country,  without  affording 
a  chance  for  "the  American  blunder  of  1776."  Disraeli's 
policy  was  to  block  all  such  attempts  toward  colonial  inde- 
pendence by  a  unity  of  interests  and  a  strengthening  of 
ties.  To  accomplish  this,  he  sent  the  Prince  of  Wales  on 
a  visit  to  India  in  1875  ;  and  in  1877  he  had  the  queen 
duly  proclaimed  Victoria,  "  by  the  grace  of  God,  Queen  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  Empress  of  India."  Thus 
did  he  attempt  the  Bismarck  role,  and  establish  the  "  unifi- 
cation "  of  England,  while,  by  a  vigorous  and  aggressive 
foreign  policy,  he  gained  the  good-will  of  the  colonies,  and 
enlarged  the  borders  of  the  empire. 


300     THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

In  one  section  of  the  vast  empire,  however,  there  was 
perpetual  unrest.  The  "  vigorous  policy "  of  England, 
from  the  clays  of  Strongbow  and  the  Geraldines,  hundreds 
of  years  back,  had  never  been  "vigorous"  to  the  end,  if 
absolute  conquest  were  desired.  Neither  Henry  the 
Eighth,  Elizabeth,  nor  Cromwell,  the  most  "  vigorous  "  of 
English  "pacificators,"  completed  the  work  they  had 
begun  ;  and  Ireland,  the  western  outpost  of  the  home  king- 
dom, gave  to  each  new  generation  and  to  each  change  of 
ministry  an  unsettled  problem.  The  successor  of  Emmet 
and  O'Connell  in  the  seventies  was  an  Anglo-American 
brought  up  in  Ireland,  Charles  Stewart  Parnell,  of  County 
Wicklow.  He  took  up,  in  1875,  the  cause  of  Irish  inde- 
pendence, and  in  1879  was  made  leader  of  the  Irish  Home 
Rule  party,  pledged  to  the  blockade  of  all  English  affairs, 
in  and  out  of  Parliament,  until  Ireland's  wrongs  had  been 
recognized,  and  the  Irish  question  settled. 

A  defensive  association,  first  started  among  the  Irish 
peasants,  was  revived  in  1877  as  the  "  Irish  Land  League." 
In  1879  this  had  so  grown  as  to  extend  over  all  Ireland, 
and  was  intended  to  limit  the  powers  of  the  landlords  in 
Ireland,  and  make  of  the  peasants  and  farmers  small  landed 
proprietors,  who  were  advised  to  stick  to  their  farms  on 
their  own  terms  of  rental,  and  not  to  give  up  until  driven 
away  by  force.  The  Land  League  promised  to  stand 
behind  the  people,  and  help  them  fight  the  landlords. 

Very  much  of  the  money-help  needed  to  support  the 
Land  League  and  strengthen  the  Irish  cause  came  in  the 
way  of  great  contributions  from  Irish  sympathizers  in 
America,  who  might  have  been  better  employed  in  making 
themselves    real    Americans.       In    that    rapidly    growing 


THE    LAST   "ONE-MAN    POWER"    OF   THE   CENTURY.     3OI 

country  the  imperilled  union  was  again  firmly  established. 
Since  1871  all  the  States  were  represented  in  Congress; 
and  by  1876,  the  centennial  year,  these  States  numbered 
thirty-eight,  while  the  western  territories,  fast  filling  up 
with  a  sturdy  and  thrifty  population,  were  also  pressing  on 
to  statehood. 

With  wealth  and  power  and  a  mighty  area  of  land  ;  with 
a  steadily  increasing  population  and  a  vast  showing  in 
national  and  intellectual  progress,  —  the  republic  of  the 
United  States  of  America,  after  one  hundred  years  of  life, 
had  triumphantly  disproved  the  prophecy  of  that  positive 
old  despot,  Frederick  the  Great,  who,  at  the  close  of  the 
American  Revolution,  had  declared  that  no  single  republic 
could  be  held  together  in  a  territory  so  vast  as  that  which 
extended  from  Maine  to  Georgia. 

"  It  will  break  into  sections  or  give  place  to  a  monarchy," 
said  the  great  Frederick,  who,  even  though  king  "by 
divine  right,"  was  not,  you  see,  infallible,  and  did  not,  as 
he  thought,  know  everything. 

In  1876,  after  a  century  of  struggle,  effort,  and  achieve- 
ment, the  United  States  of  America  had  not  split  up  into 
sections,  and  had  not  set  up  a  king.  Instead,  the  world 
saw,  on  the  western  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  a  mighty 
republic,  the  home  of  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity,  a 
land  of  peace  and  plenty,  a  monument  of  national  success, 
which  in  that  centennial  year  sent  out  an  invitation  to  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth  to  come  across  the  seas,  and  help 
it  celebrate  its  hundredth  birthday. 

"  The  world  and  his  wife  "  accepted  the  cordial  invitation  ; 
and  from  the  tenth  of  May  till  the  tenth  of  November, 
1876,  there  was  held  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  where  the 


302      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

Declaration  of  Independence  was  signed,  one  of  the  great 
international  exhibitions  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

It  was  the  largest  of  the  six  International  Exhibitions 
held  since  (and  including)  the  first  London  Exhibition  of 
1851.  The  buildings  and  grounds  covered  sixty  acres ; 
there  were  sixty  thousand  exhibitors ;  and,  during  the  one 
hundred  and  fifty-nine  days  of  the  exhibition,  it  was  seen 
by  ten  million  visitors.  It  did  much  to  acquaint  the  world 
with  the  resources  and  possibilities  of  the  great  Republic ; 
it  did  more  towards  bringing  together  the  scattered  peoples 
of  the  world,  and  increasing  that  spirit  of  neighborliness 
which,  in  spite  of  political  selfishness,  wars,  and  feuds,  is 
still  resistlessly  bringing  nearer  the  federation  of  the  world, 
while,  best  of  all,  it  cemented  in  still  stronger  bonds  the 
reunited  sections  of  a  once  threatened  Union. 

"The  people  of  Montgomery,  Alabama,  the  birthplace 
of  the  Confederate  government,  through  its  city  council," 
so  ran  the  message  sent  on  July  fourth,  "  extend  a  cordial 
and  fraternal  greeting  to  all  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  with  an  earnest  prayer  for  the  perpetuation  of 
concord  and  brotherly  feelings  throughout  the  land." 

And,  across  the  sea,  from  the  grand-nephew  and  suc- 
cessor of  that  great  Frederick  who  could  see  no  endur- 
ing union  for  the  Republic  of  1776,  came  a  significant 
greeting  for  the  same  glorious  anniversary. 

It  was  from  "  William,  by  the  grace  of.  God,  Emperor  of 
Germany,"  etc.,  to  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  President  of  the 
United  States. 

"  Great  and  good  friend,"  it  said,  "  it  has  been  vouch- 
safed to  you  to  celebrate  the  centennial  festival  of  the  day 
upon  which  the  great  Republic  over  which  you  preside 


THE   LAST    "ONE-MAN    POWER"    OF   THE   CENTURY.    303 

entered  the  rank  of  independent  nations.  The  purposes 
of  its  founders  have  by  a  wise  application  of  the  teachings 
of  the  history  of  the  foundations  of  nations,  and  with  in- 
sight into  the  distant  future,  been  realized  by  a  develop- 
ment without  a  parallel.  To  congratulate  you  and  the 
American  people  upon  the  occasion  affords  me  so  much 
the  greater  pleasure,  because,  since  the  treaty  of  friendship 
which  my  ancestor  of  glorious  memory.  King  Frederick  II., 
who  now  rests  with  God,  concluded  with  the  United  States, 
undisturbed  friendship  has  continually  existed  between 
Germany  and  America,  and  has  been  developed  and 
strengthened  by  the  ever-increasing  importance  of  their 
mutual  relations,  and  by  an  intercourse  becoming  more 
and  more  fruitful  in  every  domain  of  commerce  and  sci- 
ence. That  the  welfare  of  the  United  States  and  the 
friendship  of  the  two  countries  may  continue  to  increase 
is  my  sincere  desire  and  confident   hope." 

And  it  was  countersigned  "Von  Bismarck,"  —  the  man 
of  "blood  and  iron,"  the  man  who  had  established  and 
would  maintain  nationality  by  force ;  the  man  who  scorned 
republicanism  and  detested  democracy.  The  prophecy  of 
Frederick  the  Great  had  indeed  been  sufficiently  disproved 
by  the  message  of  his  imperial  descendant. 

"  P'ruitfiil  in  every  domain  of  commerce  and  science,"  — 
thus  had  run  the  greeting  of  the  Emperor  of  Germany. 
The  year  1876  was  indeed  this;  three-quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury had  culminated  in  a  marvellous  display  of  developed 
energies,  and  the  "  miracles  of  science,"  by  which  all  the 
world  was  affected,  and  in  whose  wonder-working  all  na- 
tions had  a  share,  seemed  especially  traceable  to  the 
achievements  of  American  thought  and  effort. 


304      THE    STORY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

"  The  realm  of  scientific  investigation,"  so  said  the  Lon- 
don Times  of  that  day,  "  is  actively  occupied  at  present  by 
our  American  cousins,  and  with  results  simply  astounding." 
It  was  at  the  Centennial  Exhibition  at  Philadelphia  that 
these  marvellous  possibilities  were  first  fully  realized,  and 
that  those  "four  new  wonders  of  the  world,"  —  the  electric 
light,  the  telephone,  the  phonograph,  and  the  microphone, 
were  either  practically  demonstrated  or  positively  out- 
outlined.  Inexhaustible  light,  instantaneous  communica- 
tion of  sound,  the  preservation  of  actual  speech,  the 
intensifying  of  almost  inaudible  sounds  —  these  were  the 
"  four  new  wonders  "  that  were  given  to  the  world  between 
1875  and  1880;  and  their  practical  utilization  revolution- 
ized the  methods  of  world-communication,  and  displayed 
the  electricity  which  1800  knew  only  as  a  toy,  as  the  real 
and  coming  force  of  the  world.  And  for  much  of  this 
discovery,  development,  and  adaptation,  America  is  re- 
sponsible. 

In  something  more  than  material  affairs  was  the  world 
making  progress  in  those  "three-quarter  "  years.  In  1875 
France  adopted  a  new  constitution,  admirably  suited  to  a 
people  of  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  French.  It  was  a  con- 
serv^ative  compromise  between  republicanism  and  royalty — 
or  the  organization,  as  it  has  been  termed,  of  a  constitutional 
monarchy,  in  which  a  president  elected  for  seven  years 
holds  the  position  of  a  constitutional  king,  acting  through 
a  ministry  appointed  by  himself,  but  personally  responsible 
to  the  representative  assembly  of  the  republic. 

In  1878  Americanized  Japan,  which  had,  only  as  late  as 
1 87 1,  abolished  its  old  feudalism  of  the  dark  ages,  took 
steps  to  make  itself,  like  England,  a  constitutional  mon- 


THE    LAST   "ONE-MAN    POWER"   OF   TII'E   CENTURY.    305 

archy,  establishing  local  elective  assemblies,  with  rights  of 
petition,  extending  the  franchise  to  all  men  over  twenty-one 
who  could  pay  a  land-tax  of  five  dollars,  and  set  about  se- 
curing for  itself  constitutional  freedom,  a  national  assembly, 
and  the  highest  forms  of  civilized  government. 

In  1876  Spain,  resting  from  the  exhausting  struggle  of 
factional  strife,  followed  the  lead  of  Cavour  and  Bismarck, 
and  declared  for  "the  Constitutional  Unity  of  Spain." 
The  desires  of  Castelar  the  republican  were  not  suited  to 
unrepublican  Spain  ;  the  military  dictatorship  of  the  sol- 
dier Serrano  pleased  neither  republican  nor  monarchist. 
A  king  was  called  for,  but  he  must  be  neither  despot  nor 
feudal  lord  ;  he  must  be  a  constitutional  and  a  liberal  king. 
So,  following  the  spirit  of  the  age,  a  constitution  was 
adopted  in  1876.  A  king  was  selected  in  the  person  of  the 
son  of  the  exiled  Isabella ;  and  Alfonso  XII.,  recognized  as 
the  constitutional  king,  ascended  the  throne  of  Spain  as  the 
head  of  the  new  condition  of  affairs.  Portugal,  too,  in 
1877,  achieved  a  conservative  regeneration  of  its  govern- 
ment, extending  the  right  of  suffrage  and  permitting  the 
representation  of  minorities.  But  the  long-considered 
union  with  Spain  has  not  yet  been  effected. 

Electoral  reforms  and  constitutional  methods  also,  about 
this  same  time,  went  into  effect  in  aristocratic  Austria, 
where  Bismarck's  policy  of  nationalism  was  being  attempted 
with  the  rival  and  warring  elements  of  a  factional  and 
divided  people.  In  1876,  however,  the  eastern  borders  of 
Austria  were  disturbed  by  a  determined  effort  on  the  part 
of  the  Christian  dependencies  of  Turkey  to  break  away 
from  their  Mohammedan  masters.  The  "  Sick  Man  of 
Europe"  began    to  grow   very   sick   indeed    about    1S75. 


306     THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

The  Turkish  debt  grew  larger,  money  became  scarcer,  and 
the  "  Sublime  Porte  "  (that  odd  title  of  a  gate  on  a  dock 
which  has  been  taken  by  Turkey  as  its  official  name)  was 
practically  bankrupt.  An  increase  of  taxes  roused  certain 
of  the  Christian  departments  of  Turkey  to  rebellion.  In- 
surrection first  broke  out  in  1875,  in  Herzegovina,  one  of 
the  northwestern  border  provinces  of  the  Sultan.  In  May, 
1876,  the  peasants  of  Bulgaria  revolted,  and  the  powers 
of  Europe  demanded  that  Turkey  reform  her  ways.  Mean- 
time, the  Turks  themselves  were  splitting  into  parties.  A 
new  generation  of  progressive  Turks,  popularly  known  as 
"Young  Turkey,"  declared  that  the  Sultan  was  respon- 
sible to  the  people  for  his  actions  ;  and  if  he  did  not  reign 
legally,  he  should  be  deposed.  This  alarmed  the  Sultan, 
He  made  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  "  Young  Turkey  "  party 
grand  vizier  —  Midhat  Pasha,  a  man  who  was  almost  a 
statesman  ;  and  in  December,  1 876,  a  constitution,  which 
was  solemnly  proclaimed  to  be  "  the  property  of  all  Otto- 
man subjects,"  was  actually  drafted  and  promulgated  !  It 
provided  for  a  cabinet  and  a  parliament,  such  as  the  more 
progressive  European  nations  had  established,  and  gave  to 
the  Turkish  empire,  so  it  was  declared,  "  the  reign  of  lib- 
erty, justice,  equality,  and  the  triumph  of  civilization." 
It  almost  seemed  as  if  the  spirit  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury had  penetrated  even  the  darkness  of  absolute  Turkey  ! 

But  while  doing  this,  and  attempting  to  put  down  the 
revolution  in  Herzegovina,  the  scum  of  the  Turkish  army 
was  turned  loose  upon  the  rebels  in  Bulgaria,  and  a  cam- 
paign of  massacre  followed  which  roused  Europe  and 
America  to  horror  and  protest. 

Three  of  the  powers  of  Europe, —  Russia,  Austria,  and 


THE   LAST   "ONE-MAN    POWER"   OF   THE   CENTURY.    307 

Germany, — after  a  conference  at  Berlin,  presented  a 
"memorandum"  of  reforms  to  the  Sublime  Porte,  which 
the  Sultan's  council  refused  to  accept  because,  so  it  was 
asserted,  they  were  "  contrary  to  the  Constitution ! "  Then 
Midhat  Pasha  was  "  discharged  ; "  and  as  Turkey  seemed 
going  back  to  its  old  ways,  the  European  powers  threat- 
ened, in  March,  1877,  to  abandon  Turkey  to  her  own 
devices,  but  to  take  from  her  all  her  Christian  provinces. 

This  was  Russia's  scheme.  England,  alone,  objected  to 
it,  because  it  meant  Russia's  supremacy,  and  peril  to  Eng- 
land's possessions  in  the  East.  But,  after  long  discussion,  it 
was  practically  adopted  ;  and  when  Russia  backed  up  its 
demands  by  a  war  with  Turkey  (in  which  the  siege  of 
Plevna  in  Bulgaria,  in  1877,  ^^s  the  most  important 
happening),  the  Sultan  gave  in,  and  by  the  Peace  of  San 
Stefano,  dictated  by  victorious  Russia  and  the  Congress  of 
Berlin,  in  1878,  renounced  his  sovereignty  over  nearly  all 
the  Christian  states  tributary  to  him  in  Europe. 

This  Congress  of  Berlin,  however,  materially  modified 
Russia's  demands  at  San  Stefano,  as  the  dismemberment 
of  Turkey  there  proposed  seemed  all  too  favorable  to  Rus- 
sia ;  and  Russia  was,  as  it  had  been  since  the  downfall  of 
the  great  Napoleon,  his  successor  as  a  menace  to  Europe. 
Prince  Bismarck  was  president  of  the  Congress  of  Berlin  ; 
Beaconsfield  was  the  English  representative;  and  these  two 
men  dominated  the  Congress,  curbed  and  cut  down  Rus- 
sia's share  in  "the  Turkish  land-grab,"  and  gave  to  Aus- 
tria the  right  of  occupation  and  virtual  suzerainty  which 
Russia  had  coveted.  "  Young  Turkey  "  was  for  the  time 
defeated;  and  the  strong  man  of  Europe,  Bismarck,  the 
genius  of  his  age,  had  again  won  a  triumph  in  nationality, 


308      THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

by  fostering  a  union  of  the  Christian  nations  of  the  Balkan 
Peninsula. 

"  We  want  permission  to  build  churches ;  we  want  a 
bishop  of  our  own  race  ;  we  want  schools ;  we  want  taxes 
fixed  ;  we  do  not  want  soldiers  in  our  houses  !  "  Thus  had 
run  the  petition  addressed  to  western  Europe  by  the 
Christian  mountaineers  of  Herzegovina,  who  had  started  this 
Turkish  overthrow  of  1875.  *' I,  Khame,  king  of  the 
Bagamangwato,  greet  Victoria,  the  great  Queen  of  the  Eng- 
lish," ran  the  petition  of  the  African  chief  to  England,  in 
1876.  "  I  ask  her  majesty  to  pity  me,  and  to  hear  what  I 
write,  quickly.  The  Boers  are  coming  into  my  country, 
and  I  do  not  like  them.  They  sell  us  and  our  children. 
The  custom  of  the  Boers  has  always  been  to  cause  people 
to  be  sold,  and  to-day  they  are  still  selling  people," 

So,  from  two  far-separated  and  utterly  distinct  persecuted 
peoples,  came  the  cry  to  Europe  for  rehef.  And  Europe 
heeded  it.  The  Christians  of  the  Balkans  were  liberated  ; 
and  England,  in  1877,  annexed  the  Transvaal,  put  a  stop 
to  Dutch  civil  war  in  South  Africa,  and  saved  the  native 
Africans  from  the  curse  of  slavery. 

The  Congress  of  Berlin,  which  in  June,  1878,  settled  for 
the  time  all  the  perplexing  problems  of  the  Eastern  Ques- 
tion, settled  another  thing  for  the  time  being.  It  showed 
that  Germany's  influence  was  "  preponderant  "  in  Europe. 
And  in  1880  Germany  was  Bismarck. 

He  had  raised  his  country  to  its  greatest  height  of  glory ; 
he  had  united,  developed,  and  advanced  her  from  a  loose 
and  shifting  confederacy  of  jealous  and  often  warring  states 
to  an  imperial  and  undivided  nation  ;  he  had  defeated  in 
succession  Austria,  France,  and  Russia ;  he  had  triumphed 


THE    LAST   "ONE-MAN    POWER"   OF   THE   CENTURY.     309 

in  the  dismemberment  of  Turkey  ;  stamped  down  the  rising 
threat  of  Socialism  ;  emerged  victorious  from  his  Cnltiir- 
kampf — his  "fight  for  civiUzation," — and  in  1877,  on 
the  heights  of  the  Niederwald,  overlooking  the  redeemed 
and  reconquered  Rhine,  where  Arminius,  earliest  of  Ger- 
man patriots,  had,  ages  before,  overthrown  the  legions  of 
the  invading  Romans,  he  had  laid  the  foundation  of  that 
glorious  national  monument  which  commemorates  German 
valor,  German  triumph,  German  redemption,  German  unity, 
and  German  greatness.  And  in  1880  the  greatest  of  all 
Germans,  of  all  Europeans,  indeed,  was  the  statesman  Otto 
Von  Bismarck,  creator  of  German  unity. 


"  Tolstoi's  purpose  is  mainly  to  make 
others  realize  that  religion,  that  Christ,  is 
for  this  actual  world  here,  and  not  /or 
some  potential  world  elsewhere.  .  .  .  In 
any  event,  his  endeavor  /or  a  right  li/e 
cannot  be  /orgotten.  Even  as  a  pose,  i/ 
■we  are  to  think  so  meanly  o/  it  as  that,  it 
is  by  /ar  the  most  impressive  spectacle  o/ 
this  century.  .  .  .  IVe  must  recognize  him 
as  one  o/  the  greatest  men  o/  all  time  be/ore 
we  can  measure  the  extent  of  his  renuncia- 
tion." .  .  . 

William  Dean  Howells. 


THE  AGE   OF   TOLSTOI. 
P  HIL  A  NTHR  OPY. 

(i88a-i8ifO.) 


COUNT  TOLSTOI 

(Lyoff  Nikolaievich), 
THE   REALIST  OF  PHILANTHROPY, 
Bom  Tula,  Russia,  August  28,  lSz8. 


CHAPTER     XVIII. 

HOW    THE    WORLD    BEGAN    TO    TRY    THE    GOLDEN     RULE. 
{From  1880  to  188^) 

WHILE  Bismarck  was  cementing  the  foundation  of 
German  unity,  and  building  the  edifice  of  German 
power ;  while  the  United  States  was  working  its  way  from 
perplexities  to  peace  ;  while  England  was  increasing  her 
power  abroad,  and  new  men  and  new  measures  were  taking 
firm  hold  upon  every  nation,  —  civilized  and  uncivilized,  king- 
hedged  or  free,  —  there  lived  in  the  most  absolute  of  mod- 
ern monarchies  a  man  destined  to  be  the  incarnation  of 
conservativ^e  equality  —  Tolstoi  the  Russian. 

A  count  of  the  empire,  a  soldier  of  Scbastopol,  a  man 
of  wealth,  position,  and  estate,  he  had  been  awakened, 
aroused,  and  moved  to  a  higher  mission  by  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  serfs  of  Russia  in  1861.  He  received  a  vision 
of  universal  brotherhood  ;  and,  returning  to  his  estates  in 
Central  Russia,  he  devoted  himself  to  the  humanizing  of 
the  world,  —  especially  of  the  world  of  Russia,  as  it  lay 
about  him. 

Count  Lyon  Tolstof  was  what  the  practical  politicians 
slightingly  call  "a  literary  fellow."  Worse  than  that  in 
the  practical  politician's  eye,  he  wrote  novels.  How  could 
a  man  who  lived  in  fiction  deal  with  fact  .-' 

But  it  was  the  facts  that  really  were  facts  that  impelled 
Count    Lyon  Tolstoi   to  write  his  fictions.     The  spirit  of 


314      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

the  age  had  been  the  growth  of  nations  into  independence 
and  union.  Why  should  not  all  men  be  united  and  free .-' 
this  Russian  dreamer  asked  himself. 

But  ignorance  can  never  be  independent ;  illiteracy  can 
never  achieve  unity.  The  first  step  towards  making  men 
really  men  must  be  in  education,  and  true  education  is 
based  on  brotherhood.  So  Count  Lyon  TolstoT  determined 
to  live  as  a  brother  among  his  brothers ;  and,  literally  ac- 
cepting the  words  of  him  from  whom  the  nineteen  progres- 
sive centuries  date  their  beginning,  he  took  as  his  life-text : 
"  One  is  your  Master,  even  Christ,  and  all  ye  are  brethren." 

It  was,  indeed,  the  spirit  of  the  age  that  impelled  the 
Russian  count  to  attempt  the  levelling  of  rank  and  caste, 
of  poverty  and  wealth,  into  one  universal  brotherhood.  It 
was  in  many  ways  a  wild,  impracticable,  and  unwise  scheme  ; 
for  equality  is  not  equal  mathematical  distribution,  and 
brotherhood  is  not  absolute  harmony ;  without  differences 
of  opinion  there  could  be  little  real  progress.  The  story 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century  has,  however,  proved  again  and 
again  the  truth  of  the  Great  Teacher's  declaration  which 
follows  after  the  text  taken  by  Tolstoi,  "  Whosoever  ex- 
alteth  himself  shall  be  abased,  and  he  that  humbleth  him- 
self shall  be  exalted."  As  Professor  Lange  well  says : 
"  Out  of  the  humility  of  fidelity  springs  the  courage  of 
freedom." 

It  was  this  humility  of  fidelity  that  led  Count  Tolstoi,  in 
pursuance  of  his  new  theory,  to  live  among  and  labor  with 
his  neighbors,  the  emancipated  serfs,  in  equality  and  com- 
radeship. Eighty  years  of  the  "  courage  of  freedom,"  from 
Washington  to  Lincoln,  from  Robespierre  to  Garibaldi, 
from  Bolivar  the  South  American  to  Ito  the  Japanese,  had 


now    THE    WORLD   TRIED   THE   GOLDEN    RULE.      315 

taught  the  world  the  real  meanings  of  the  first  misunder- 
stood "  slogan  "  of  French  enfranchisement  :  "  liberty,  equal- 
ity, fraternity."  For  out  of  all  this  had  come,  first  and 
foremost,  the  wisdom  of  unity  ;  and  it  was  unity  of  purpose 
that  was  at  the  base  of  Tolstof's  plan.  "  He  cannot  admit 
in  his  arraignment  of  civilization,"  says  Howells,  "the  plea 
of  a  divided  responsibility  ;  he  will  not  suffer  the  prince,  or 
the  judge,  or  the  soldier,  to  shirk  the  consequence  of  what 
he  officially  does."  An  undixided  responsibility  is  to-day 
the  law  for  men  as  well  as  nations. 

The  publication  of  Tolstoi's  "Anna  Karenina,"  just  be- 
fore 1880,  was  held  to  be  a  literary  event  in  Russia;  its 
translation  and  appearance  in  Western  languages,  soon  after 
1880,  marked  a  new  era  in  the  world's  advance  ;  for  it  was 
recognized  as  introducing  certain  new  elements  into  the 
practical  affairs  of  life,  —  self-surrender,  realism,  philan- 
thropy, and  truth. 

Of  course  the  wisdom  of  putting  these  elements  into 
actual  practice  as  Tolstoi  has  done  is  open  to  question. 
The  radical  reformer,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  cases  of  John 
Brown  and  Wendell  Phillips,  of  Mazzini  the  Italian,  and 
Owen  the  Englishman,  were  unwise,  even  excitable  and 
revolutionary  in  their  methods  ;  the  real  reform  was  estab- 
lished by  such  conservative,  well-balanced  men  as  Lincoln, 
Cavour,  Thiers,  and  Gladstone.  But  when  Tolstoi,  by 
the  extent  of  his  renunciation  of  wealth,  fame,  honors, 
and  power,  became,  as  Howells  declares,  "  the  most  im- 
pressive spectacle  of  the  century,"  he  put  into  practice  a 
•principle  that  had  been  gradually  strengthening  with  the 
century,  —  the  desire  to  benefit  others,  called  by  philoso- 
phers "altruism,"  and  covering  a  course  of  actions  designed 
to  benefit  others  rather  than  ourselves. 


3l6      THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

This  is  the  very  opposite  of  selfishness  ;  and  selfishness, 
which  has  been  the  curse  of  the  world  for  ages,  has  had  its 
hardest  knocks  in  this  progressive  Nineteenth  Century,  — 
the  century  of  a  growing  faith  in  liberty,  equality,  and 
fraternity. 

Tolstoi's  radical  altruism  profoundly  affected  the  world  ; 
and  the  decade  between  1880  and  1890,  which  first  dis- 
played the  practical  spirit  of  philanthropy  and  of  actions 
prompted  by  benevolent  instincts,  may  rightly  be  esteemed 
the  era  in  which  Tolstoi'  the  Russian  was  the  dominating, 
even  if  unacknowledged  influence,  in  literature,  science, 
and  art,  in  manners,  morals,  and  methods,  in  living,  at- 
tempting, and  doing. 

A  hasty  glance  over  the  happenings  of  those  ten  years 
between  1880  and  1890  might  not  at  first  convey  the  im- 
pression of  a  growing  spirit  of  benevolence  and  philan- 
thropy. But  it  existed,  none  the  less.  There  were  wars 
and  rumors  of  wars  to  record  ;  but  they  were  not  the  per- 
sonal wars  of  former  days  ;  they  were  wars  for  civilization 
rather  than  of  ambition  ;  of  democracy  rather  than  of  des- 
potism. Even  the  domestic  quarrels  were  based  on  differ- 
ing ideas  of  justice  rather  than  the  blind  ways  of  diplomacy. 
In  England,  as  Professor  Macvane  explains,  even  when 
Tory  supremacy  came  again  "in  the  eighties,"  the  Conser- 
vatives did  not  oppose  all  new  reforms  ;  they  did  oppose 
some  proposed  by  radical  agitators  ;  but  "  many  of  the  lib- 
eral reforms  of  the  years  since  1880  have  been  enacted  by 
the  Tories."  When  Gladstone,  in  1881,  sought  to  main- 
tain English  rule  and  property  rights  in  Ireland,  he  did  not 
attempt  to  stamp  out  by  the  bloody  methods  of  old  what 
he  called  Parnell's  "new  gospel  of  pillage."     He  sought 


HOW    THE    WORLD    TRIED   THE   GOLDEN    RULE.     317 

rather  to  help  the  Irish  peasants  by  a  "land-court  "  and  an 
"adjustment  "  of  rentals  ;  he  arrested  Parnell,  but  he  did 
not  punish  or  persecute  him  in  the  old  way.  When  Bis- 
marck in  Germany  battled  with  the  forces  of  socialism 
and  unrest  in  1881,  he  did  not  wage  a  warfare  of  fire  and 
sword  as  his  baronial  ancestors  would  have  done.  He  issued 
a  message  of  helpfulness  to  the  needy,  declaring  that  "be- 
yond the  duty  of  defence,  the  state  has  the  task  put  upon 
it  of  promoting  in  positive  ways  the  well-being  of  all  its 
members,  particularly  the  weak."  And  even  in  France, 
when  Gambetta,  the  radical,  rose  to  power  in  1880,  he 
counselled  his  followers  not  to  resort  to  the  bloody  ways 
of  the  first  revolutionists,  but  "  to  cultivate  union,  discipline, 
and  patience,  and  settle  questions,  one  by  one." 

Here,  certainly,  was  a  marked  advance  upon  the  old 
methods  of  revolution  and  repression  ;  and  as  both  political 
and  religious  creeds  seemed  to  clash  less  hostilely,  and  to  be 
held  not  less  strongly  but  less  brutally,  it  seemed  as  if  the 
world  were,  indeed,  doing  better  by  itself,  and  as  though  it 
were  seeking  a  closer  approach  to  that  brotherhood  at- 
tempted by  Tolstoi  the  Russian,  and  voiced  by  Lowell  the 
American  — 

"  Oh,  chimes  of  sweet  Saint  Charity, 
Peal  soon  that  Easter  morn. 
When  Christ  for  all  shall  risen  be. 

And  in  all  hearts  new  born  I 
That  Pentecost  when  utterance  clear 

To  all  men  shall  be  given  ; 
When  all  shall  say  '  My  brother '  here. 
And  hear  '  My  son  '  in  heaven  1 " 

But  the  Pentecost  season  was  yet  far  away.  The  world 
was  simply  approaching  it   slowly,  with  many   slips  and 


3l8      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

many  strivings  along  the  upward  pathway.  The  struggle 
for  wealth  was  still  fierce  ;  the  power  of  money  seemed 
scarcely  less  immovable  ;  the  strife  for  power  and  possession 
was  still  stubborn  and  strong. 

In  Asia,  England  and  Russia  overstepped  the  boundaries 
of  Turkey,  and  became  rivals  for  dominion  in  the  East ;  in 
Africa,  England  and  France  struggled  for  the  joint  control 
of  Egypt,  and  were  first  faced  by  the  native  revolt  under 
Arabi  Pasha,  in  1881,  and  then  forced  into  a  "dissolution 
of  partnership  "  by  the  successful  assumption  of  financial 
control  by  England  in  1883  ;  while  in  South  Africa,  the 
obstinately  independent  Boers  of  the  Transvaal  proclaimed 
in  1880  the  South  African  Republic,  notwithstanding  the 
equally  obstinate  assertion  of  the  British  cabinet  that  "the 
Transvaal  shall  be  and  shall  continue  to  be  forever  an  in- 
tegral portion  of  her  Majesty's  dominions."  Even  when 
Mr.  Gladstone  came  into  power,  soon  after,  he  declared 
that  "  the  Queen  cannot  be  advised  to  relinquish  her  sover- 
eignty over  the  Transvaal;"  but  when  the  Boers,  firm  in 
their  faith,  fought  bravely  for  their  cause,  and  in  Febru- 
ary, 1 88 1,  won  the  battle  of  Majuba  Hill,  Mr.  Gladstone 
stopped  his  re-enforcements,  and  offered  the  Boers  "  self- 
government  subject  to  British  suzerainty  "  if  they  would 
lay  down  their  arms. 

It  was  the  grave  mistake  of  a  great  man.  Mr.  Gladstone 
would  have  been  wiser  had  he  remembered  the  advice  of  Po- 
lonius  to  young  Laertes,  and  had  fought  the  quarrel  out. 
Later  complications  would  have  been  spared ;  and  his  aban- 
donment of  the  Englishmen  in  the  Transvaal  after  he  had 
assured  them  that  they  should  be  protected,  was  declared 
by  all  to  be  little  short  of  "national  dishonor."       A  simi- 


HOW   THE    WORLD   TRIED   THE   GOLDEN    RULE.     319 

lar  policy  in  the  war  against  the  Arabian  revolt  from 
Egypt  in  188 1,  led  to  the  abandonment  and  death  of  the 
brave  General  Gordon  at  Khartoum  ;  while  the  war  on  the 
Afghan  border,  from  which,  in  1881,  the  British  troops 
were  also  withdrawn,  resulted  in  little  glory  save  the  bril- 
liant march  of  the  now  famous  General  Roberts  to  the  re- 
lief of  Kandahar. 

In  each  of  these  "  affairs,"  however,  it  seemed  to  Eng- 
land as  if  the  national  honor  had  been  sacrificed ;  and 
though  really,  in  each  case,  Mr.  Gladstone  was  but  follow- 
ing out  his  "altruism"  —  his  Tolstof  faith  —  his  desire  to 
keep  England  from  despotic  strifes  and  unholy  wars,  his  in- 
tentions were  misjudged,  and  the  great  peace  minister  was 
well-nigh  overthrown.  But  he  adhered  to  his  policy,  joined 
hands  with  the  Irish  in  the  demand  for  home  rule,  and  ad- 
vocated the  practical  independence  of  Ireland.  His  desires 
were  noble,  and  his  aims  were  high  ;  but  so,  too,  were 
those  of  Count  Tolstoi' ;  so,  too,  were  those  of  Henry 
George,  a  marked  character  of  that  day  in  the  United 
States ;  but  public  opinion  and  official  thought  had  not  pro- 
gressed to  these  higher  planes  of  endeavor,  and  Gladstone, 
as  well  as  Tolstoi'  and  Henry  George,  were  but  leaders  of 
a  wavering  minority. 

In  1880  the  population  of  the  United  States  had  grown 
to  more  than  fifty  millions  ;  the  centennial  year  had  opened 
a  new  epoch  in  the  story  of  the  great  republic,  for  then 
force  gave  place  to  freedom  ;  slavery  and  State  rights  be- 
came dead  issues,  and  political  questions  were  matters  of 
principle  rather  than  of  personal  jealousies.  In  1883  the 
civil-service  theories  of  office-upholding  supplanted  the  old 
Jacksonian  creed  that  '*  to  the  victor  belong  the  spoils  ; " 


320      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

and  the  protection  of  American  industries,  the  welfare  of 
the  country,  and  the  "greatest  good  of  the  greatest  num- 
ber," became  the  peaceful  problems  that  demanded  settle- 
ment 

Thus,  too,  it  may  be  seen,  was  the  great  western  nation 
tending  toward  the  "altruistic"  methods,  and  the  Tolstoi' 
idea  of  philanthropy  in  government  was  securing  a  foot- 
hold, if  not  an  absolute  trial. 

In  1880  slavery  was  abolished  in  Cuba;  in  1881  Greece, 
thanks  to  English  backing,  secured  from  Turkey  its  ancient 
northeastern  limits  of  Thessaly ;  in  1882  the  Salvation 
Army  instituted  its  peculiar,  creedless,  semi-military,  and 
semi-religious  plan  of  saving  the  "submerged  tenth"  — 
the  lowest  orders  of  society  —  by  a  campaign  of  reforma- 
tion and  philanthropy;  in  1883  Henry  George  attempted 
his  radical  but  well-intentioned  plan  of  race  relief,  or  "land 
nationalism  ; "  and  India,  reclaimed  and  advanced  by  Eng- 
lish occupation,  hailed  Victoria  as  empress  supreme,  and, 
urged  by  Mr.  Bright's  "Tolstoi'an  cry  "  of  "justice  to  In- 
dia," almost  secured,  in  1883,  an  absolute  advance  toward 
"equal  rights  ;  "  in  1884  the  republic  of  France  presented 
to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  as  a  mark  of  friendly 
feeling  and  brotherly  love,  the  gigantic  statue  of  Liberty, 
which  to-day  in  New  York  harbor  stands,  a  welcoming 
landmark,  at  the  gateway  to  the  commercial  metropolis  of 
the  western  world.  And  in  that  same  year  of  1884  a  new 
franchise  bill  in  England  added  to  the  voters  of  Great 
Britain  nearly  two  million  freemen,  and  lessened  the  in- 
equalities of  race  and  class,  against  which  reformers  had  so 
long  protested.  The  Australasian  colonies  of  Great  Britain 
took  forward  steps  toward  union  and  federation  in  a  season 


HOW    THE    WORLD    TKU'ID    THE    GOLDEN    RULE.     32 1 

of  increasing  prosperity  ;  and  the  revision  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament in  1 88 1  marked  the  development  of  scholarly 
thouf^^ht  and  the  freedom  of  criticism. 

These  certainly  looked  like  an  advance  along  the  pleas- 
anter  paths  of  peace  and  fraternity,  and  a  growth  in  broad- 
ening and  helpful  methods.  There  are,  of  course,  offsets 
to  every  benefit,  and  hindrances  to  every  advance.  Those 
opening  years  of  the  "  eighties  "  were  no  exception  in  this 
way.  But  of  what  lasting  benefit  is  progress,  obtained 
without  sacrifice  or  opposition  ?  Progress  comes  because 
of  opposition  ;  and  the  "^ thought  "  of  that  wise  Roman, 
Marcus  Aurelius,  was  as  true  in  the  nineteenth  century  as 
it  was  in  the  second  century,  when  he  uttered  it  :  "  That 
which  is  a  hindrance  is  made  a  furtherance  to  an  act,  and 
that  which  is  an  obstacle  on  the  road  helps  us  on  the 
road." 

In  the  years  between  iSSo  and  1885  there  was  no  lack 
of  such  hindrances  and  obstacles.  There  were  "boycot- 
ting "  and  violence  in  perplexed  Ireland  ;  there  was  politi- 
cal murder  in  the  Emerald  Isle,  the  assassination  of  a 
czar  in  Russia  and  of  a  president  in  the  United  States  : 
Lord  Cavendish  struck  down  in  Phenix  Park  by  Irish 
"terrorists,"  Alexander  of  Russia  by  Nihihst  "reformers," 
and  President  Garfield  in  America  by  a  political  fanatic. 
An  unreasoning  despotism  filled  Siberia  with  political 
e.xiles,  and  persecuted  the  Jews  in  Russia.  Even  the  wel- 
coming hand  of  free  America,  stretched  out  to  all  the 
world,  was  stricken  down  by  the  Chinese  Exclusion  Act 
of  1882  ;  and  the  trades  unions  and  labor  agitators  who 
clamored  for  it  were  but  another  obstacle  in  the  upward 
path  to   their   own  liberty.     The  irksome  bond  of   union 


322      THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

between  Norway  and  Sweden  was  strained  almost  to  snap- 
ping in  1884,  as  the  Norwegian  writer  and  reformer, 
Bjornson,  sought  to  introduce  "  foreign  ideas  "  and  certain 
of  the  teachings  of  TolstoL  In  South  America,  progres- 
sive Chili  waged  war  with  Peru  and  Bolivia  over  the  own- 
ership of  mines  and  boundaries  ;  and  the  naval  battle  off 
Point  Angamos  tested  the  new  war  invention  of  armored 
fighting-ships.  In  Europe  international  jealousies  over 
the  vexed  Eastern  question  held  England  almost  alone 
against  a  half -allied  Europe ;  and  one  of  these  old-time 
despotisms,  the  "  League  of  the  Three  Emperors,"  was 
renewed  when,  in  1884,  Germany,  Austria,  and  Russia 
sought  to  keep  France  quiet,  "  discipline "  Italy,  and 
"  isolate  "  England. 

Bismarck  was  still  "in  the  saddle,"  with  Austria  and 
Russia  as  his  submissive  allies.  But  no  great  man,  in  this 
advancing  age,  can  long  hold  undisputed  sway.  The  "  Iron 
Chancellor's "  critics  grew  openly  hostile  ;  even  the  for- 
merly subservient  Reichstag  would  not  grant  his  desires ; 
majorities  threatened  his  power,  and  departments  denied 
him  assistance  ;  and  only  the  loyalty  of  the  old  Emperor 
William,  to  whom  the  iron  chancellor  was  almost  indis- 
pensable, could  save  him  from  falling  before  the  power  of 
the  growing  opposition. 

In  France  a  new  leader  had  risen  to  power,  Leon  Gam- 
betta,  chief  of  the  republicans  ;  but  his  methods  and  his 
manners  savored  too  much  of  the  dictator,  and  a  republican 
"dictator  "  is  worse  than  a  king.  France  had  experienced 
too  much  of  this  "Napoleonic"  leadership;  and  in  three 
months  after  his  elevation  as  prime  minister  in  1882,  pop- 
ularity and  power  were  both  lost  by  Gambetta,  and  France, 


HOW   THE    WORLD   TRIED   THE   GOLDEN    RULE.     323 

to  divert  agitation  and  criticism  at  home,  set  out  on  a 
career  of  colonial  expansion.  In  Africa,  Asia,  and  the 
"isles  of  the  sea,"  she  revived  the  old  Napoleonic  dream  of 
empire  and  a  stop  to  British  expansion.  Madagascar 
was  overrun,  Annam  " protected,"  Tonquin  "assimilated," 
the  Soudan  "influenced,"  and  the  Congo  claimed  ;  and  by 
1885  France  was  recognized  as  one  of  the  great  powers 
that  had  established  "  spheres  of  influence  "  in  the  world 
of  expanding  possession. 

It  was  about  this  time,  indeed,  the  early  "eighties,"  that 
this  phrase,  "spheres  of  influence,"  came  into  diplomatic 
usage.  It  referred  to  such  sections  or  regions  of  newly 
appropriated  country  as,  by  mutual  consent,  might  be  occu- 
pied or  developed  by  the  power  for  which  it  was  named,  or 
by  whom  it  was  controlled.  Very  many  of  these  "  spheres," 
especially  in  Africa,  were  acquired  or  appropriated  about 
this  time  by  European  powers,  who,  as  in  the  case  of 
France,  sought  to  divert  criticism  at  home  by  expanding 
abroad. 

The  criticism  at  home  in  all  cases  came  from  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  party  in  power  —  those  who  were  "  agin'  the 
government,"  as  the  saying  was  ;  and  in  many  cases  these 
opponents  were  of  that  openly  hostile  class  who  were 
against  all  government  of  the  kind  under  which  they  lived. 
In  Germany  the  Socialists,  in  Russia  the  Nihilists,  in 
France  the  Communists,  in  Austria  the  Anarchists,  with 
equally  radical  "  ists  "  in  other  parts  of  Europe,  were  for- 
ever attempting  to  stir  up  strife  by  extreme  measures  — 
from  strikes  and  discontent  among  the  working-people,  to 
assassination  and  destruction  among  kings  and  ruling 
classes. 


324     THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

The  principle  underlying  all  these  radical  organizations 
is,  of  course,  a  true  one  —  it  is  the  desire  for  liberty,  equal- 
ity, and  fraternity  that  has  been  at  the  basis  of  all  revolu- 
tions since  the  days  of  Robespierre  ;  but  as  in  his  case, 
even  though  he  was  called  "the  Incorruptible,"  selfishness 
tinges  endeavor;  jealousy  contributes  to  all  movements  ;  and 
hatred  of  all  who  have  money,  property  or  social  position, 
official  power,  military  authority,  or  genius  for  leadership, 
impels  these  unwise,  fanatical,  or  conscienceless  "  reform- 
ers "  to  outrage  the  very  principle  of  brotherhood  for 
which  Tolstoi  stands,  and  for  which  these  so-called  reform- 
ers clamored,  until  one  feels  almost  ready  to  exclaim  with 
Madam  Roland,  —  the  victim  of  the  Revolution  she  upheld : 
"O  Liberty,  what  crimes  are  committed  in  thy  name!" 

These  revolutionary  reformers  depended  largely  upon 
the  working-man  for  their  recruits  and  sympathizers  ;  un- 
able to  see  that  capital  and  labor  depend  upon  and  are 
necessary  to  one  another,  the  "  agitators  "  endeavored  to 
stir  up  strife  between  the  capitalist  and  the  wage-earner, 
basing  their  action  upon  the  fundamental  idea  which  they 
continuously  "preached  at  "  their  followers:  "The  history 
of  all  society  is  the  history  of  struggles  between  classes. 
.  .  .  Labor  is  the  sole  origin  of  wealth.  .  .  .  Emancipa- 
tion of  labor  must  be  the  work  of  the  laboring  class,"  and 
urging  a  union  of  forces  among  the  working-men  of  the 
world  to  assert  and  compel  the  rights  of  labor.  This,  of 
course,  rightly  directed,  means  a  steady  rise  of  the  people  ; 
but  it  has  never  been  well  or  properly  led,  —  save,  perhaps, 
in  such  excellent  fraternal  and  self-helpful  organizations  as 
"The  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  P^ngineers  "  in  the  United 
States,  with  others,  perhaps,  equally  reticent  and  equally 


HOW   THE    WORLD   TRIED   THE   GOLDEN    RULE.     325 

practical  in  other  sections  of  the  world.  But  the  contest 
between  labor  and  capital  is  as  old  as  the  Pharaohs,  and 
the  secession  of  the  Plebes  to  the  Sacred  Mount  ;  and  even 
the  wonderful  Nineteenth  Century  was  not  able  to  decide 
it,  although  it  did  much  to  intensify,  unite,  and  practical- 
ize  it. 

And  here  again,  as  in  so  many  other  departments  of  life 
and  action,  the  unity  for  which  Tolstoi  stood  and  for  which, 
almost  unconsciously,  the  world  was  laboring,  was  apparent. 
Eighty  years  of  material  and  intellectual  progress  had 
brought  the  world  more  closely  in  touch  ;  and  in  spite  of 
differences  and  drawbacks,  in  spite  of  obstacles  and  oppo- 
sition, in  spite  of  agitation  and  antagonism,  the  "  chimes  of 
sweet  Saint  Charity,"  which  Lowell  yearned  to  hear,  could 
now  and  then  be  faintly  caught,  as  some  loving  soul  like 
Tolstof  the  "Brother,"  some  worker  for  good  like  Booth 
the  Salvationist,  some  practical  optimist  like  Arnold  Toyn- 
bee  the  "  Settlement  "  organizer,  some  ante-mortem  philan- 
thropist like  Peter  Cooper,  —  sought  in  his  own  peculiar  and 
not  always  practical  way  to  help  rather  than  to  hinder  the 
real  progress  of  the  people  toward  self-help,  self-control, 
and  self -adjustment. 


CHAPTER    XIX, 

HOW    THE    NATIONS    EXTENDED    THEIR    INFLUENCE. 
{From  i88j  to  iSgo.) 

THE  telephone  and  the  typewriter  came  into  general  use 
about  1885.  Before  that  date  they  had  been  first 
curiosities,  and  then  luxuries  ;  but  by  1885  they  had  both 
become  necessities,  and  the  benefit  and  advantage  derived 
from  them  by  civilization  had  already  become  incalculable. 
Developments,  both,  of  the  greater  inventions  of  the  tele- 
graph and  the  printing-press,  they  were  in  a  sense  fitting 
accompaniments  to  those  new  phases  of  intellectual  prog- 
ress which  were  making  education  the  property  of  the 
masses  rather  than  of  the  individual,  regulating  labor  so 
that  it  was  support  rather  than  servitude,  and  introducing 
more  of  comfort  and  manliness  into  the  harsher  conditions 
of  daily  life.  Philanthropy  is  not  alone  an  element  of 
charity  ;  it  is  an  element  of  progress  as  well ;  and  whatever 
simplifies  labor  and  softens  drudgery  is  as  helpful  as 
philanthropy  and  as  welcome  as  benevolence. 

In  1885  education  was  extending  not  only  to  the  teach- 
ings of  the  schools,  but  to  the  instruction  of  the  people  in 
all  helpful  and  elevating  ways.  In  certain  nations  it  had 
become  a  function  of  government,  and  Bismarck's  rule  in 
Germany  had  grown  into  a  paternal  as  well  as  a  supervis- 
ing authority.  An  independent  people  is  apt  to  object  to 
this  paternalism,  however,  and  neither  England  nor  America 

326 


TYPES   OF   THE   )  Hi-oo 

,  „_     __    _,,_,  ___,,    I  Gram 


Gladstone 
AGE   OF   TOLSTOI  \  wTJVek  R?rsUvEN-soM 


THE   NATIONS   EXTEND   THEIR   INFLUENCE.         327 

could  have  been  developed  by  such  methods  as  Germany 
had  been.  The  German  government  co-operated  with  the 
German  people,  and  had  become  indeed  government  by 
regulation.  It  regulated  hotels  and  railroads,  telegraphs 
and  nursing,  the  sale  of  provisions  and  the  health  of  cities, 
even  athletics  and  advertising ;  it  advised  with  scientific 
exactness,  and  endeavored  to  combine  benevolence  with 
justice.  School  attendance  was  compulsory,  and  every 
field  of  life  aiid  labor  was  cared  for  by  men  taught  and 
drilled  for  their  especial  work.  It  was  a  great  scheme  for 
physical  and  intellectual  development,  but  people  are  ever 
apt  to  rebel  against  too  much  "management." 

At  the  head  of  the  German  nation  stood  in  1889,  after  a 
thousand  years  of  the  Fatherland's  struggle  toward  suprem- 
acy, a  representative  of  the  "divine  right  of  kings,"  which 
those  thousand  years  had  persistently  proclaimed,  and 
which  Bismarck  had  so  strenuously  insisted  upon.  The 
old  Emperor  William,  the  ruler  of  united  Germany,  died  in 
March,  1888.  That  same  year  his  son  and  successor, 
Frederick  III.,  a  sick  man  at  the  time  of  his  accession,  died 
within  three  months  of  his  father,  June,  1888.  Even  in 
that  brief  reign  a  revolt  was  begun  by  the  throne  against 
the  autocracy  of  Bismarck ;  and  when,  upon  the  death  of  his 
father,  the  young  Emperor  William  II.  ascended  the  throne, 
he  did  so  with  an  overweening  confidence  in  his  own  powers 
and  an  unc|uestioning  belief  in  his  own  abilities  that  argued 
an  early  "friction"  between  himself  and  his  mighty  chan- 
cellor. 

"  Not  since  the  first  Napoleon,"  wrote  an  observer  in 
Berlin,  "  has  a  young  man  wielded  such  tremendous  power 
as  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  this  headstrong,  violent,  and  re- 


328      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

vengeful  prince.  .  .  .  Let  the  map-makers  get  ready  and 
sharpen  their  tools,"  he  added,  "for  they  will  have  work 
to  do." 

Russia,  the  home  of  Tolstof  the  philanthropist,  had  grown 
into  a  united  and  mighty  nation,  composed  of  people  who 
were  slow  to  change,  and  had  not  yet  become  used  to  the 
freedom  their  master  the  Czar  had  given  them.  Katkoff, 
the  great  leader  of  Russian  nationality,  who  had  labored 
for  what  is  called  the  "Russification  "  of  the  empire,  died 
in  1887,  and  czar  and  peasant  alike  mourned  beside  his 
bier ;  for  the  true  Russian  felt  that  Russia  could  be  the 
real  nation  which  its  greatest  rulers,  from  Peter  to  Alex- 
ander —  arbitrary  and  despotic  though  they  were  —  had 
sought  to  make  it,  only  as  it  followed  the  path  marked  out 
for  it  by  this  great  privy  councillor.  The  world  outside,  who 
knew  only  the  despotism,  the  nihilism,  and  the  exiles  of 
Russia,  could  not  appreciate  the  mighty  influence  of  this 
man,  who  wished  to  make  Russia  Russian  and  not  German  ; 
national  and  not  divided.  Tolstoi's  higher  idea  of  broth- 
erhood, however,  did  not  fit  well  into  Katkoff' s  idea  of 
nationality. 

Education  and  enlightenment,  too,  had  brought  England 
to  a  condition  of  prosperity  unequalled  in  her  history. 
Poverty  and  need,  suffering  and  squalor,  still  existed  ;  but 
the  age  of  philanthropy  had  improved  the  condition  of  the 
people  ever  since  the  day  when  Charles  Dickens,  in  his 
masterly  novels,  led  the  crusade  against  English  official- 
ism, even  as  Thackeray  did  against  English  sham.  The 
"cry  of  the  children,"  as  voiced  thirty  years  before  by 
Mrs.  Browning,  like  the  cry  for  bread  from  starving 
England  in  the  still  earlier  days  of  the  Chartist  troubles, 


THE    NATIONS    EXTEND   THEIR   INFLUENCE.  329 

had  led  British  statesmen  and  lawmakers  through  a  period 
of  philanthropic  and  industrial  progress  until,  in  the  decade 
of  the  "eighties,"  the  advance  of  the  people  had  been 
almost  as  remarkable  as  the  progress  of  the  kingdom  in 
all  material  things  —  thanks  to  the  practical  operations 
of  thought,  as  exhibited  in  such  discoveries  as  railway 
growth,  telegraph  and  telephone  expansion,  cheap  post- 
age, and  the  skilled  and  energetic  application  of  steam 
and  machinery  to  the  productive  industries  of  her  mul- 
tiplying manufactories. 

The  year  1887  was  duly  celebrated  in  England  as  the 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  coronation  of  Queen  Victoria. 
With  splendid  ceremonies  in  Westminster  Abbey  ;  with 
military  and  naval  pageants,  as  notable  as  they  were 
extensive ;  with  delegations  from  every  part  of  the  vast 
empire ;  with  waving  banners  and  brilliant  illumination  ; 
with  swelling  music  and  booming  cannon,  —  the  British 
P^mpire,  from  bound  to  bound,  kept  fitting  national 
thanksgiving  for  the  unparalleled  progress  of  the  em- 
pire during  the  fifty  years  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign. 

The  Victorian  age  had  indeed  been  the  age  of  progress  ; 
the  reign  of  Victoria  had  been  more  eventful  than  that  of 
either  or  all  of  the  three  other  reigns  that  reached  the 
half-century  limit — Henry  III,,  Edward  III.,  and  George 
III.  ;  for  the  people  had  progressed  as  never  before  in 
an  equal  space  of  time ;  every  department  of  life  and 
action  had  advanced  and  broadened  ;  and  the  voice  of  the 
people  expressed  through  their  parliament  was  now  the 
supreme  power  of  the  land,  which  monarchs  could  not 
curtail  nor  ministers  disregard. 

"  Knowledge    comes    but    wisdom    lingers,"    Tennyson, 


330     THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

brightest  of  the  Victorian  poets,  had  written  years 
before ;  and  in  all  this  notable  advance  through  fifty 
years  of  effort  and  achievement  since  that  slight  girl  of 
eighteen  had  seated  herself  in  the  coronation  chair  of 
England,  wisdom  sometimes  kept  but  unequal  step  with 
knowledge,  and  sometimes  "lingered"  woefully.  A  nat- 
ural dislike  of  change  has  always  held  man  back  from 
the  forward  step ;  and  every  improvement  has  been 
resisted,  from  independence  to  electricity,  and  from  labor- 
saving  machinery  to  parhamentary  reform  and  national 
expansion.  Even  in  the  years  succeeding  1885,  when 
humanity  was  slowly  taking  the  place  of  selfishness  in  the 
way  of  the  world,  every  advance  was  resisted  and  every 
attempt  toward  the  general   good  was  checked. 

In  England  Gladstone,  master-builder  of  British  democ- 
racy, who,  from  the  Tory  of  1832,  had  become  "the  Great 
Commoner"  of  1885,  fell  from  power  in  1886  for  lack 
of  support  by  the  people  he  sought  to  benefit,  unite,  and 
glorify.  Gambetta,  who,  in  France,  would  have  made  his 
country  a  parliamentary  republic,  fell,  in  1882,  because 
those  whom  he  would  have  helped  feared  his  dictatorial 
ways,  and  died,  disgraced,  within  a  few  months  of  his 
down-fall ;  while  the  political  adventurer  Boulanger,  "  the 
hope  of  the  people"  in  1886,  who  loudly  proclaimed  him- 
self the  mainstay  of  "the  open  republic,"  and  was  hailed 
with  exultant  "vivas  !  "  fell  by  reason  of  his  very  success 
in  1889,  ^^^  was  driven  into  exile  and  suicide.  In  Italy, 
Crispi,  major  and  minister  of  Garibaldi,  the  republican  dic- 
tator of  Sicily  in  i860,  prime  minister  of  Italy  and  leader 
for  the  constitution,  liberty,  and  peace,  and  hailed  in  1887 
as  "  the  one  minister  necessary  to  Italian  honor,"  fell  from 


TIIK    NATIONS    EXTEND   THEIR    INFLUENCE.         33  I 

leadership  because  he  dared  to  criticise  a  foreign  policy 
which  he  thought  bad  for  Italy.  Bismarck,  the  creator  of 
German  unity,  and  the  hope  of  the  nation  while  the  old 
Emperor  William  lived,  toppled  from  power  in  1889,  be- 
cause he  dared  declare  his  opposition  to  the  policy  of  the 
young  F^mpcror  William,  who  arrogantly  demanded  "  un- 
questioning obedience  to  the  crown."  In  seeking  to  com- 
promise matters  in  Austria  between  those  who  demanded 
"  German  unity  in  Austria  "  and  those  who  clamored  for 
Slavonian  union  (or  "Austria  for  the  Czechs"),  Count 
Taaffe  lost  his  grip ;  while  Svendrup,  who  labored  for 
reform  and  education  and  Scandinavian  supremacy  in 
Norway  and  Sweeden,  was  forced  from  power  as  prime 
minister  in   1889. 

So,  in  all  lands  those  who  led  or  desired  the  advance  of 
the  people  in  nationality  or  reform  felt  the  uncertainties 
of  power  or  the  fickleness  of  popularity.  But  the  power 
of  the  people  survived  all  changes  and  attacks. 

This  power  of  the  people  displayed  itself  in  all  lands. 
The  imperial  federation  of  England  in  1887  —  an  out- 
growth of  colonial  loyalty  in  the  splendor  of  the  Queen's 
Jubilee  of  that  year  —  became  more  firmly  estabhshed, 
and,  by  1889,  even  Ireland  seemed  at  peace.  The  advo- 
cates of  monarchy  in  France  yielded,  in  1889,  to  the  evi- 
dent determination  of  the  French  people  to  remain  a 
republic  "  one  and  indivisible  ;  "  and  the  Paris  exhibi- 
tion of  that  year,  held  to  commemorate  the  one  hundredth 
anniversary  of  the  Republic,  once  again  drew  all  eyes  to 
the  fact  that  France  was  great  and  prosperous,  and  had 
no  desire  for  Boulanger's  policy  of  "Agitation  and  adven- 
ture."    The  "  League  of  Peace  "  between  Germany,  Aus- 


332      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

tria,  and  Italy  in  1887  was  but  enforcing  the  popular 
disapproval  of  anything  that  should  disturb  the  "  harmony 
of  Europe  ;"  so,  to  divert  the  energies  of  agitators, 
increase  the  commercial  prosperity,  and  broaden  the 
world-influence  of  civilization,  the  leading  governments 
of  Europe  set  busy  hands  at  work  abroad,  and,  before 
1890,  were  entering  upon  an  era  of  colonial  expansion, 
and  finding  vent  for  all  their  international  jealousies  in 
what  has  been  well  called  the  "Scramble  for  Africa." 

This  "scramble"  seemed  to  affect  every  portion  of  the 
former  "dark  continent,"  —  dark  no  longer,  thanks  to 
European  "exploitation."  Before  1890  dawned,  England 
was  in  Egypt  struggling  for  the  possession  of  the  Nile ; 
she  was  in  South  Africa  consolidating  her  power  over  insur- 
gent Zululand  ;  she  was  establishing  a  protectorate  over 
Zanzibar ;  while  Germany,  France,  Italy,  Spain,  Portugal, 
and  Belguim,  entering  into  the  "  scramble,"  marked  out 
"spheres  of  influence"  which,  by  1890,  had  zigzagged  and 
circled  over  all  Africa  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  the 
Mediterranean,  and  "  influenced  "  all  sections  of  the  dark 
continent  not  claimed  by  Turkey  as  suzerain  or  held  as 
native  powers.  The  "native  powers  "  indeed  were  by  that 
time  few  and  far  between  ;  even  the  Dutch  Boers  of  South 
Africa  had  assumed  the  name  of  Afrikanders, — that  is, 
white  natives,  —  and  had  organized  the  Afrikander  Bund, 
which  aimed  not  only  at  white  Dutch  influence  and  suprem- 
acy in  South  Africa,  but  at  the  ultimate  complete  indepen- 
dence of  that  section  as  the  "  United  States  of  South 
Africa." 

Even  the  United  States  of  America  had  a  little  interest 
in  Africa.     For  on  the  west  coast,  with  a  sea  frontage  of 


THE   NATIONS   EXTEND   THEIR   INFLUENCE.         333 

four  hundred  miles,  and  an  area  of  nearly  fifteen  thousand 
square  miles,  the  American  Colonization  Society  had,  in 
1822,  founded  a  colony  of  free  negroes  who  desired  the 
political  and  social  freedom  denied  them  in  the  United 
States.  This  philanthropic  experiment  resulted  in  an  inde- 
pendent and  established  government  as  the  Republic  of 
Liberia  in  1847,  recognized  as  such  by  foreign  nations,  and 
"assisted"  especially  by  England  and  the  United  States, 
with  a  president,  senate,  and  house  of  representatives,  and 
a  milUon  and  a  half  inhabitants.  So,  even  though  the 
great  American  republic  had  no  real  sphere  of  influence 
in  Africa,  it  had  to  a  certain  extent  2,  protege,  even  though 
it  was  not  a  recognized  and  "influenced  "  one. 

The  United  States  of  America,  meanwhile,  secure  in  its 
mighty  homeland,  was  fast  growing  into  greatness  in  those 
years  when  Europe  was  outlining  spheres  of  influence 
abroad.  In  the  ten  years  between  1880  and  1890  over 
five  million  immigrants  had  come  into  the  United  States 
through  the  ports  of  New  York,  Baltimore,  Boston,  Phila- 
delphia, and  San  Francisco;  the  population  of  the  great 
republic  had  grown  from  fifty  millions  in  1880  to  sixty- 
two  millions  in  1890,  and  1889  closed  with  forty-two  States 
in  the  Union.  As  against  the  thirteen  States  of  1789, 
when  the  Constitution  was  adopted  and  the  less  than  four 
millions  of  inhabitants,  this  growth  was  phenomenal  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  It  was  an  eloquent  commentary  on 
the  value  of  personal  liberty,  national  independence,  and 
equal  rights. 

The  one  hundred  years  of  popular  government  which 
closed  in  1889  were  fitly  recognized  by  a  jubilee  cele- 
bration, in  the  city  of  New  York,  of  the  Centennial  aiini- 


334     THE   STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

versary  of  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  inaug- 
uration of  George  Washington  as  first  president  of  the 
United  States.  What  that  inauguration  and  that  Consti- 
tution meant,  not  only  to  the  United  States  of  America, 
but  to  the  world  at  large,  this  story  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century  has  tried  to  suggest,  but  it  cannot  adequately  tell 
or  even  estimate  ;  for  the  influence  of  that  one  hundred 
years  of  government  "  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the 
people,"  had  been  felt  throughout  the  world;  and  the  "new 
birth  of  freedom  "  which  freedom's  chief  martyr,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  desired  for  his  own  homeland,  had  even  before 
the  American  Republic's  hundred  years  of  constitutional 
liberty  closed,  extended  to  all  peoples  and  to  all  lands. 

Especially  had  the  people  of  the  south  lands  of  America 
—  the  republics  of  Central  and  South  America  —  felt  this 
influence  and  impulse.  Less  contained  and  less  conserva- 
tive than  the  cooler  Anglo-Saxon  temperament  of  the 
North,  the  Latin  Americans  of  the  South,  as  they  had 
established  independence  only  through  blood,  maintained 
it  also  only  through  blood.  Feud  and  faction,  and  the  rest- 
lessness of  minorities,  kept  those  fertile  lands  nearer  the 
equator  in  perpetual  turmoil  and  frequent  change.  But 
though  revolution  succeeded  revolution,  never  once  did 
those  nations  let  go  the  main  and  central  fact  of  republi- 
can independence ;  and  the  effect  of  personal  and  political 
liberty  was  so  great  that  even  the  liberal  empire  of  Brazil, 
was,  in  1889,  overthrown,  and  the  republic  proclaimed  in 
its  place.  Even  the  good  old  Emperor,  Dom  Pedro,  be- 
cause he  was  an  emperor,  was  exiled ,  and  on  the  nineteenth 
of  November,  1889,  the  provisional  government  declared 
that  monarchy  was  abolished,  and  that  "the  provinces  of 


THE    NATIONS    EXTEND   THEIR   INFLUENCE.  335 

Brazil,  united  by  federation,  compose  the  United  States  of 
Brazil."  Thus  was  the  last  vestige  of  old-world  monarchy 
swept  from  the  shores  of  free  America. 

In  the  very  year  that  saw  the  downfall  of  monarchy  in 
Brazil,  Japan,  that  old  island  despotism  of  the  Asiatic 
seas,  became  a  constitutional  monarchy.  Adopting  the 
methods  and  many  of  the  manners  of  Western  civilization, 
Americanized  as  well  as  Europeanized  in  its  shrewd  and 
ready  adoption  of  progressive  ways,  this  Oriental  empire  of 
forty  millions  agreed  to  and  promulgated,  on  the  eleventh 
of  February,  1899,  a  Constitution,  founded  on  that  of  Ger- 
many, and  guaranteeing  to  the  people  of  Japan  liberty  of 
religion,  freedom  of  speech,  the  franchise  to  all  men  who 
paid  a  small  specified  tax,  with  a  legislative  assembly 
consisting  of  a  house  of  lords  and  a  house  of  commons, 
in  the  English  style.  New  treaties  were  signed  with  all 
the  great  powers  of  the  world ;  commissioners  were  sent 
to  Europe  and  America  to  study  methods  of  legislation ; 
railways  and  street-cars  were  introduced  and  extended ; 
and  a  nation,  hermit  for  centuries,  and  known  to  the  com- 
merce of  the  world  for  less  than  twenty  years,  possessed 
in  1889  a  foreign  commerce  amounting  to  more  than  one 
hundred  millions  of  dollars,  with  national  banks,  harbor  im- 
provements, and  even  a  national  debt !  In  all  modern  his- 
tory there  is  no  such  sudden  leap  into  civilization  as  this 
marvellous  awakening  of  Japan. 

This  progress  of  Japan,  with  the  growing  possibilities  of 
China  as  a  land  for  trade  and  development,  extended  the 
European  desire  for  "spheres  of  influence"  from  Africa  to 
Asia  ;  and  Great  Britain,  France,  Germany,  Portugal,  Spain, 
and  Russia  had  now  large  holdings  or  sure  footings  on  the 


336      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

islands  and  continents  of  the  Asiatic  shores  of  the  Pacific. 
Even  the  United  States  felt  the  impulse  to  make  itself 
secure  in  the  Pacific,  and  looked  with  a  practical  business 
eye  upon  the  mid-Pacific  island  group  of  Hawaii  and  the 
further  western  group  of  Samoa.  Already  was  civilization 
touching  these  western  stepping-stones  to  Asia.  The  king- 
dom of  Hawaii  —  long  known  as  the  Sandwich  Islands  — 
were  so  closely  connected  with  the  United  States  in  trade 
and  commerce  that  already  the  old-time  despotism  of  the 
Kamehameha  of  1800  had  changed  into  the  limited  and 
constitutional  monarchy  of  1887  —  fast  tending  towards 
a  republic,  while  American  influence  was  dominating  the 
islands.  The  native  kingdom  of  Samoa,  whose  "  ideas  and 
manners,"  wrote  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  "date  back  be- 
fore the  Roman  Empire,"  were,  in  1885,  coveted  by  and 
practically  partitioned  among  the  merchants  and  traders  of 
three  foreign  powers  —  England,  Germany,  and  the  United 
States.  Rival  provinces  and  rival  kings  disturbed  with 
their  jealousies  the  peacefulness  of  this  South  Sea  island 
group,  fomented  and  disturbed  by  the  rival  traders  of  the 
three  nations.  In  1886  Germany,  backing  up  one  of  the 
rival  native  kings  against  the  one  in  possession,  practically 
annexed  Samoa  under  a  tributary  king  to  the  open  dis- 
approval of  England  and  America.  In  1889  the  United 
States,  to  whom  a  coaling-station  had  been  granted,  for- 
mally protested  against  the  action  of  Germany,  and  what 
looked  at  first  like  an  insignificant  bit  of  commercial  rivalry 
developed  at  once  into  an  international  dispute.  Civil  war 
broke  out  between  the  rival  kings  ;  German,  American,  and 
British  warships  were  hurried  in  semi-hostile  fashion  to 
Apia,  and  a  three-cornered  war  seemed  imminent. 


THE    NATIONS    EXTEND   THEIR   INFLUENCE.         337 

Suddenly,  on  the  sixteenth  of  March,  1889,  Dame  Na- 
ture took  a  hand.  On  the  morning  of  that  day  a  fearful 
hurricane  burst  upon  Samoa.  "  The  formidable  surf  of 
the  Pacific,"  as  Stevenson  calls  it,  lashed  into  fury  by  the 
terrible  wind,  broke  into  the  harbor  of  Apia,  driving  the 
warships  ashore,  shattered  and  wrecked  them  with  fearful 
loss  of  life,  and  awoke  three  great  nations  to  the  truth  that, 
as  Stevenson,  the  historian  of  what  he  calls  this  "  footnote 
of  history,"  declares,  "not  the  whole  Samoan  archipelago 
was  worth  this  loss  in  men  and  ships."  National  arbitra- 
tion ensued.  The  Conference  of  Berlin,  held  in  April, 
1889,  arrived  at  an  amicable  arrangement  of  international 
difficulties  ;  and,  again  to  quote  from  Stevenson,  "  the  so- 
called  hurricane  of  March  sixteenth  made  thus  a  marking 
epoch  in  world-history.  Directly  and  at  once  it  brought 
about  the  Congress  and  Treaty  of  Berlin ;  indirectly, 
and  by  a  process  still  continuing,  it  founded  the  modern 
navy  of  the  United  States.  Coming  years  and  other  his- 
torians will  declare  the  influence  of  that.  .  .  .  For,  with 
the  hurricane,  the  broken  warships,  and  the  stranded  sail- 
ors," he  continues,  "came  an  end  of  violence.  .  .  .  Two 
years  of  blundering  were  obliterated  by  the  negotiations  at 
Berlin.  The  example  thus  offered  by  Germany  is  rare  in 
history ;  in  the  career  of  Prince  Bismarck,  so  far  as  I  am 
instructed,  it  should  stand  unique,  for  he  seems  magnani- 
mously to  have  owned  that  his  policy  was  wrong." 

This  was  the  hardest  as  it  was  the  noblest  thing  a  man 
of  the  Iron  Chancellor's  nature  could  do.  It  showed,  after 
all,  the  Tolstoi  strain.  But  Bismarck's  action  in  the  Samoan 
dispute  was  only  a  slight  halt  in  his  scheme  for  the  colonial 
expansion  of  Germany,  which  had  already  involved  him  in 


33S      THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

trouble  with  his  colonial  rivals,  England  and  Spain.  So, 
however  much  the  influence  of  what  we  may  call  the  Tol- 
stoi" element  of  fraternity  really  did  touch  him,  we  may  not 
absolutely  say  ;  but  certainly  this  influence  was  affecting 
the  civilized  world. 

Especially  did  it  draw  the  United  States  into  a  desire 
for  mutual  relations  with  its  own  American  neighbors  ;  and 
in  1 889  James  G.  Blaine,  the  energetic  and  able  Secretary 
of  State,  brought  about  one  of  his  plans  for  greater  unity 
in  the  meeting  of  a  Pan-American  Congress,  which,  on  the 
nineteenth  of  November,  assembled  at  Washington.  Rep- 
resentatives from  the  principal  states  of  North  and  South 
America  were  present ;  and  consultations  were  held  result- 
ing in  the  reaffirmation  of  the  "  Monroe  Doctrine  "  of  1824, 
and  the  closer  union  of  the  American  Republics  in  matters 
common  to  the  various  states,  and  for  the  "furtherance  of 
international  commerce  and  comity,"  including,  even,  the 
vast  idea  of  an  iron  band  of  railway  connection  from  Beh- 
ring  Sea  to  Terra  del  Fuego. 

So,  gradually,  as  the  last  decade  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury drew  near,  did  the  world  draw  nearer  together  in  neigh- 
borliness ;  the  unknown  corners  of  the  earth  were  fewer, 
the  unexplored  parts  smaller,  the  unbeaten  tracks  scarcer. 
Trade  and  commerce,  curiosity  and  pleasure,  science  and 
investigation,  were  beating  all  roads  into  highways,  and  un- 
earthing the  odd  folks  and  queer  places  that  had  been  hid- 
den away  since  the  origin  of  species  and  the  budding  life  of 
man.  True,  growth  did  not  put  a  stop  to  selfishness,  nor 
did  •  development  overcome  greed ;  new  opportunities 
aroused  fresh  discussions  as  to  ownerships,  and  new  pos- 
sibilities started  fresh  quarrels.     With  thirty-three  thousand 


THE    NATIONS    EXTEND   THEIR   INFLUENCE.         339 

Steam  and  sailing  vessels  engaged  in  the  carrying  trade  of 
the  world,  with  a  tonnage  of  twenty-two  millions,  and  with 
nearly  forty  nations  battling  for  the  business  of  the  globe, 
competition  grew  sharp,  and  rivalries  were  often  bitter  ; 
but  the  policy  of  "  live  and  let  live "  had  well-nigh  sup- 
planted the  old  methods  of  business  brutality,  and  the 
"  Black  Fridays "  that  had  marked  panics  in  speculation 
grew  less  frequent  and  less  ruinous. 

The  vast  development  of  the  gold  and  diamond  mining 
industry  in  South  Africa  did,  indeed,  increase  the  friction 
between  Boer  and  Briton  in  that  land  of  clashing  interests, 
and  brought  to  the  surface,  as  the  prime  mover  in  the 
whole  trouble,  the  restless  and  remarkable  English  diamond 
miner,  Cecil  Rhodes  of  Kimberley.  Rival  interests,  poor 
management,  and  careless  financiering  put  an  end  in  1889, 
after  eight  years  of  work,  to  the  great  scheme  by  which 
De  Lesseps,  hero  of  the  Suez  Canal,  sought  to  join  the 
Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  by  a  canal  through  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama  ;  the  half-breed  Canadian  of  the  "great  lone  land," 
Louis  Riel  of  the  Red  River  country,  for  a  second  and  last 
time  tried  to  raise  a  revolt  against  English  supremacy  in 
Canada  in  1885,  only  to  meet  defeat  and  death  at  Regina  ; 
Servia  and  Bulgaria,  those  restless  principalities  on  the 
Balkan  borders  of  Turkey,  fell  into  the  wrangle  of  war  in 
1885,  over  the  union  of  "the  two  Bulgaries,"  which  ended 
in  Bulgarian  victory,  European  protest,  and  Russian  domi- 
nation ;  labor  troubles  shook  both  sides  of  the  sea ;  and 
the  determined  "  Russification "  of  the  Czar's  dominions 
finally  swallowed  up  the  individuality  of  Poland  and  Fin- 
land, in  spite  of  protest  and  desires  for  liberty,  —  all  these 
were  obstacles  in  the  path  of  that  broader  and  wiser  charity 


340     THE    STORY  OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

which  was  gradually  influencing  and  harmonizing  men  and 
nations,  and  bringing  them  nearer  in  friendship  and  agree- 
ment as  befitted  the  age  of  Tolstoi",  the  philanthropist. 

Of  course  I  would  not  be  considered  as  asserting  that 
Tolstof,  the  Russian  count  who,  since  the  Crimean  War, 
had  been  working  out  his  problem  of  humanity  in  his  own 
peculiar  way,  was  recognized  or  accepted  by  the  world  as 
its  tutor  in  humanity  and  its  leader  in  fraternity.  His 
ways  and  methods  were  alike  overstrained  and  impractical ; 
the  key-notes  of  his  teachings,  "  resist  not  evil,"  worked 
out  along  his  lines  could  scarcely  help  the  world  forward  ; 
and  his  attempt  to  do  in  this  nineteenth  century  literally 
the  will  of  Christ  as  conveyed  to  the  people  of  the  first 
century  would  scarcely  fit  the  changed  conditions  of  the 
world ;  but,  as  Howells  says  of  Tolstoif,  "  No  man  so  glori- 
ously gifted  and  so  splendidly  placed  has  ever  bowed  his 
neck  and  taken  the  yoke  upon  it  ; "  and  in  many  ways  his 
story  and  his  influence  must  have  affected  the  world  of  his 
day  —  even  while  it  rejected  and  ridiculed  his  methods. 

But,  after  all,  the  spirit  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  itself 
had  been  the  world's  greatest  purifier —  enlightening,  enfran- 
chising, and  redeeming  ;  for,  in  that  uplifting  of  the  people, 
the  very  clement  that  moved  Tolstof,  the  Christ-like  wish 
to  benefit  others,  had  place ;  what  the  Germans  called  the 
Zeitgeist — the  spirit  of  the  time  —  that  general  drift  of 
thought  or  feeling  which  characterizes  or  directs  any  period 
or  epoch — had,  in  the  decade  of  1880  to  1890,  been,  in 
spite  of  strife  and  selfishness,  in  spite  of  greed  and  gain, 
the  altruistic  or  benevolent  awakening ;  the  better  con- 
science of  the  world  was  being  touched  ;  education  and 
philanthropy  were  doing  practical  work ;    aristocracy  was 


THE   NATIONS    EXTEND   THEIR   INFLUENCE.  34 1 

gradually  yielding  to  democracy  —  not  the  democracy  that 
vulgarizes,  but  the  democracy  that  uplifts  —  the  democracy 
of  Lincoln  and  Emerson,  of  Gladstone  and  Tolstoi,  the 
democracy  which,  as  Lowell  says,  has  "energy  for  good," 
and  which,  he  adds,  "amid  all  the  fruitless  turmoil  of  the 
world,  holds  one  thing  steadfast  and  of  favorable  omen  — 
the  instinct  in  men  to  admire  what  is  better  and  more 
beautiful  than  themselves." 


"  The/acilities  and  possibilities  of 
communication  luith  our  /ello-wtnen, 
and  the  improvements  in  the  produc- 
tion of  light  for  conitnon  use  are  suf- 
ficiently ne-w  and  remarkable  to 
distinguish  this  century  from  all  the 
ages  that  preceded  it." 

Alfred  Russel  Wallace. 


THE  AGE   OF  EDISON. 

Energy. 
(1890-1900.) 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON, 

THE  "  WIZARD  OF  MENLO  PARK; 
Born  Milan,  Ohio,  February  11,  1847. 


CHAPTER    XX. 

WHEN    MEN    BEGAN    TO    PROVE    THE    VALUE    OF    THINGS. 
{From  i8go  to  i8gj.) 

"  M^  Other  period  in  the  history  of  the  human  race," 
1  N  says  Professor  Seig^obos,  "  has  seen  such  profound 
and  rapid  transformation  in  the  material  conditions  of  Hfe 
as  have  taken  place  during  the  Nineteenth  Century."  And 
this  has  largely  been  because  of  the  world's  methods  of 
practically  applying  the  inventions  of  the  century,  many  of 
which,  indeed,  had  their  beginnings  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, but,  in  their  inception,  lacked  the  demand  for  appli- 
cation which  came  because  of  international  needs  and 
international  help. 

This  help  came  not  always  because  of  friendship,  for 
inventors  have  ever  been  rivals,  and  often  enemies.  But 
the  means  of  communication,  of  comparison,  and  of  infor- 
mation have  increased  so  notably  as  the  people  of  the 
world  became  more  neighborly  and  in  touch  with  one  an- 
other that,  as  Professor  Seignobos  has  well  explained,  "the 
scholars  and  inventors  of  all  nations  have  been  united  in  so 
close  an  international  collaboration  that  it  is  not  always 
possible  to  determine  which  country  takes  the  initiative  in 
each  invention  ;  and  they  have  passed  from  one  nation  to 
another,  gaining  imperceptibly  from  each." 

The  practical  application  of  these  international  inven- 
tions was  so  widely  made  during  the  last  ten  years  of  the 

345 


346      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

century,  that  the  decade  between  1890  and  1900  may  well 
be  termed  the  era  of  scientific  progress  and  application ; 
while  the  ability  to  use,  develop,  test,  and  establish  these 
notable  and  often  crude  beginnings  of  invention  was,  in 
those  years,  so  remarkably  displayed  by  a  certain  remark- 
able American  inventor,  that  the  closing  ten  years  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century  —the  heir  of  all  the  ages  of  invention 
and  discovery,  of  thought  and  effort,  that  preceded  them 
—  may,  without  injustice  to  others,  be  broadly  character- 
ized as  the  age  of  Edison. 

In  his  New  Jersey  laboratory  and  work-rooms,  Thomas 
Alva  Edison,  often  spoken  of  as  "  the  Wizard  of  Menlo 
Park,"  tested,  tried,  and  practically  developed  many  new 
inventions  that  had  already  become  public  necessities  — 
from  "the  ticker"  to  the  telephone,  and  the  phonograph 
to  the  incandescent  lamp.  Other  men  may  have  been 
even  more  remarkable  in  originality  of  investigation  and 
invention,  but  none  had  more  wonderful  facility  for  devel- 
oping and  adapting  the  crude  ideas  of  other  men  to  prac- 
tical results  than  had  Edison ;  and  as  a  genius  in  the 
application  of  scientific  discovery,  he  stands  unique  in  his 
day  and  generation. 

"  We  live  at  a  time,"  says  Benjamin  Kidd,  "when  science 
counts  nothing  insignificant.  She  has  recognized  that 
every  organ  and  rudimentary  organ  has  its  utilitarian  his- 
tory. Every  phase  and  meaning  of  life  has  its  meaning 
in  her  eyes ;  nothing  has  come  into  existence  by  chance." 
When,  in  the  late  "  seventies,"  James  Prescott  Joule,  the 
English  scientist,  developed  his  discoveries  as  to  the 
mechanical  value  of  heat,  and  that  the  forces  of  nature, 
showing  that  mechanical   action,    heat,    light,   electricity, 


WHEN   MEN    BEGAN   TO    PROVE   VALUE   OF   THINGS.     347 

magnetism,  and  chemical  action  are  so  closely  related  that 
any  one  may  be  used  to  produce  the  rest,  he  made  one  of 
the  greatest  discoveries  of  the  age  —  the  economy  of 
nature,  which  permits  no  such  thing  as  waste,  and  the 
preservation  of  force  as  an  indestructible  element ;  in  other 
words,  the  practical  value  of  energy. 

That,  I  beheve,  may  be  taken  as  typical  of  the  closing 
decade  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  —  the  application  of 
energy  to  life.  Whether  it  is  keeping,  by  a  display  of 
force,  the  armed  peace  of  Europe,  or  redeeming  from 
degradation  in  spite  of  itself  "the  submerged  tenth  of  the 
human  race,"  towards  whose  recovery  the  Salvation  Army 
directs  its  peculiar  and  energetic  methods ;  whether  it  is 
keeping  alive  for  the  preservation  of  society  the  very  labor 
agitations  that  seem  to  threaten  it,  or  displaying  at  a 
mighty  fair  in  Chicago  in  1893  the  accumulated  produc- 
tions of  the  world  ;  whether  it  is  extending  the  benefits  of 
civilized  progress  to  all  the  corners  of  the  globe,  and  into 
all  "staked  out"  "spheres  of  influence,"  or  urging  the 
world  on  to  a  still  more  rapid  development  by  a  series  of 
surprising  inventions  from  new  means  of  production  to  new 
means  of  destruction  —  energy  has  been  behind  it  all  ; 
and  the  restlessness  of  achievement  entered  into  every 
department  of  life,  from  education  to  finance,  and  from 
politics  to  literature.  This  is  the  new  doctrine  of  "  the 
strenuous  life." 

When  the  "  nineties  "  came,  the  great  lights  of  litera- 
ture who  had  made  the  age  so  glorious  had  already  been 
extinguished,  or  were  near  their  end.  Balzac  and  Thack- 
eray, Macaulay  and  Dickens,  Heine  and  Bryant,  Schopen- 
hauer and  Humboldt  and  Thiers,   had  long  since  passed 


348      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

away ;  Longfellow  and  George  Eliot,  Darwin  and  Hugo, 
Turgeneff  and  Green  and  Robert  Browning  had  not  lived 
out  the  "eighties  ; "  and  when  1900  came,  few  of  the  great 
names  save  Tolstoi  the  Russian  and  Ibsen  the  Norwegian 
were  on  the  roll  of  the  living.  In  1891  died  Bancroft  and 
Lowell  ;  in  1892,  Whittier  and  Tennyson  "crossed  the  bar," 
and  that  same  year  Renan  tested  his  own  theories  of  life 
and  death;  in  1894  Holmes  closed  the  glorious  roll  of 
Boston's  once  famous  literary  circle  —  "the  last  leaf"  on 
that  tree  of  goodly  fellowship  of  kindred  soul  which  had 
raised  America  far  above  the  plane  of  Sydney  Smith's 
once  querulous  query  about  the  American  book. 

And  when  Holmes  died  people  asked,  "  Will  there  ever  be 
any  men  like  those  again  .'*  "  regardless  of  the  very  fact  for 
which  the  closing  Nineteenth  Century  stood  —  the  conser- 
vation of  energy  and  the  thrift  of  nature  which  can  pro- 
duce and  develop,  if  need  be,  a  hundred  Tennysons  or  a 
hundred  Longfellows,  diffused  in  smaller  quantities  to  be 
sure,  but  of  equal  value  when  the  total  influence  is  reck- 
oned up.  The  future  may  not  need  flaring  beacon-lights, 
when  men  may  draw  help  and  radiance,  guidance  and  good, 
from  all  their  fellow-men.  Only  great  needs  now  call  out 
the  great  man. 

In  art  no  less  than  in  literature,  the  Nineteenth  Century 
had  made  wonderful  strides.  No  need  now  for  a  Michael 
Angelo  or  a  Raphael  to  stand  as  lone  peaks  above  a  level 
sea,  when  the  level  itself  was  raised  to  a  new  and  glorious 
elevation.  A  century  which  in  music  began  with  Beetho- 
ven and  closed  with  Wagner  displayed  alike  the  energy, 
courage,  and  prophecy  of  progress  ;  while  the  experimental 
age  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  and  Horace  Vernet  developed. 


WHEN    MEN    BEGAN   TO    PROVE    VALUE    OF   THINGS.     349 

thanks  to  photography  and  the  advance  of  education,  into 
the  more  natural  achievements  of  Leighton,  and  Baudry, 
and  Sargent,  and  St.  Gaudens. 

La  Farge  and  WilHam  Morris,  in  1895,  linked  art  to 
craftsmanship,  and  glorified  the  union  of  hand  and  brain  ; 
while  through  the  century  great  names  stood  out  as  mas- 
ters and  leaders  in  their  profession, —  Ingre  the  delineator, 
Daubigny  the  naturalist,  Corot  the  mystic.  Millet  the  hu- 
manitarian, Meissonier  the  miniaturist,  Baudry,  master  of 
nobility  in  decoration,  Whistler  the  etcher,  Veretschagin 
the  realist,  Munkacsy  the  storyist,  Sargent  the  portraitist, 
Chavannes  the  decorative  tonist,  Montecelli  the  colorist, 
Tryon  the  animalist  —  these  all,  with  Hunt  and  Inness, 
Abbey  and  Pyle,  Landseer  and  Rossetti,  Laurens  and  For- 
tuny  and  Israel,  Bastien-Lepage  and  Van  Mark  and  Vierge, 
with  Thorwaldsen  and  St.  Gaudens,  and  Macmonnies  and 
Baraye  and  Fremiet,  displayed,  in  painting  and  sculpture, 
in  decoration  and  design,  the  wonderful  progress  of  a  cen- 
tury, great  in  these  as  in  all  other  departments  of  endeavor 
and  achievement. 

The  year  1890  saw  also  the  result  of  an  inevitable  clash 
between  the  old  and  the  new ;  between  the  statesman  of  a 
changing  era  and  the  strong  man  of  a  new  dispensation. 

"  Let  the  king's  will  be  the  highest  law,"  wrote  the 
"strenuous"  young  Emperor  of  Germany  in  the  album  of 
an  autograph  hunter  in  1 890  ;  and  that  very  year  came  the 
struggle  between  the  king's  will  and  that  of  his  equally 
determined  Chancellor.  Political  parties  of  all  sorts  sprang 
into  existence  upon  the  accession  of  William  II.  The  rest- 
less young  emperor  took  vigorous  measures  to  foster  and  ob- 
tain his  own  desires  ;  and  when  Prince  Bismarck  wished  to 


350     THE   STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

have  things  his  way,  and  especially  wished  to  curb  and  dis- 
countenance labor  councils  and  conferences,  young  William 
declared  that  he  was  emperor,  and  that  he  proposed  to  rule 
alone.  At  last,  when  Bismarck  refused  to  give  up  an  old 
law  which  compelled  all  other  ministers  of  state  to  commu- 
nicate with  the  emperor  through  him,  the  Chancellor, 
William  the  Emperor  demanded  the  resignation  of  Bismarck 
the  Chancellor,  and  the  great  minister  fell  from  power. 

"  I  am  as  much  afflicted  as  if  I  had  lost  my  grandfather 
anew,"  said  the  young  emperor;  "but  we  must  endure 
whatever  God  sends  us,  even  if  we  should  have  to  die  for 
it.  The  post  of  officer  on  the  quarter-deck  of  the  ship  of 
state  has  fallen  to  me ;  the  course  remains  unchanged. 
Forward,  with  all  steam!  " 

The  emperor  managed  to  "  put  up  with  his  loss,"  how- 
ever, and,  the  very  incarnation  of  the  energy  of  his  day, 
drove  the  ship  ahead  with  remarkable  force,  and  in  apparent 
though  often  questionable  security.  Although  he  never 
recalled  Bismarck  to  power,  the  two  opposing  natures  were 
finally  reconciled  ;  and  when,  in  1893,  Bismarck  was  brought 
very  near  to  death's  door,  the  young  emperor  visited  the 
old  statesman,  and  fervently  congratulated  him  on  his  re- 
covery ;  while  on  the  eightieth  birthday  of  the  prince  in 
1895,  when  the  Reichstag  refused,  by  Socialist  votes,  to 
wish  their  old  enemy  "  many  happy  returns  of  the  day," 
the  emperor  was  so  indignant  that  he  very  nearly  dissolved 
the  assembly.  But  Bismarck  never  again  regained  his  lost 
power. 

Although  linking  himself  strongly  with  his  army  and  the 
display  of  power,  William  of  Germany  worked  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  peace  of  Europe,  which  he  sought  to  maintain 


WHEN    MEN    BEGAN   TO    PROVE   VALUE   OF   THINGS.     35 1 

by  leagues  and  alliances.  In  1891  the  triple  alliance,  or 
"  League  of  Peace,"  was  again  renewed  by  Germany,  Aus- 
tria, and  Italy.  It  was  a  measure  hailed,  even  by  those 
who  were  not  parties  to  it,  as  a  fresh  security ;  and  the 
peace  of  Europe  was  maintained,  not  without  some  friction, 
but  at  least  with  effectiveness.  The  fear  of  war,  which 
had  become  more  terrible  by  the  production  of  new  instru- 
ments of  destruction — dynamite,  melinite,  and  other  fear- 
ful explosives,  torpedoes,  smokeless  powder,  a  transforma- 
tion in  artillery  and  firearms,  and  accuracy  of  aim  —  held 
the  nations  in  check.  To  the  great  powers  came  not  again 
the  clash  of  arms  ;  and  1870  saw  the  last  great  Continental 
war  of  the  century. 

The  victories  of  peace  had,  however,  fully  as  restraining 
an  influence  as  the  advance  in  methods  of  war.  The  tele- 
graph, the  railway,  and  the  newspaper  were  quite  as  potent 
factors  for  peace  as  were  dynamite,  smokeless  powder,  and 
maxim  guns.  Of  the  fifty  thousand  newspapers  of  the 
world,  more  than  one-half  were  printed  in  the  English  lan- 
guage ;  of  this  number  the  United  States  and  Canada 
issued  over  twenty  thousand;  and  the  total  yearly  circula- 
tion of  the  newspapers  of  the  republic  and  the  dominion 
was  thirty  five  hundred  millions.  Admitting  all  their  short- 
comings and  all  their  faults,  can  the  influence  for  good,  as  a 
factor  of  communication  and  race  progress,  of  this  immense 
output  of  printed  sheets,  in  one  land  only  in  1894,  be  even 
estimated.-'  In  1890  the  railroads  of  the  world  reached 
a  total  of  over  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  miles  of 
track,  carrying  twenty  three  hundred  millions  of  passen- 
gers, and  transporting  more  than  fourteen  hundred  million 
tons  of  freight ;  in  1 893  the  miles  of  railway  had  increased  to 


352      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

over  four  hundred  and  six  thousand,  and  the  carrying  facil- 
ities had  proportionately  increased.  Comfort  as  well  as 
speed  and  strength  were  sought  after  and  attained,  —  the 
Empire  State  Express  on  a  New  York  railroad  making  in 
1893  a  mile  in  thirty -two  seconds,  equivalent  to  one  hun- 
dred and  twelve  and  a  half  miles  an  hour,  while,  in  1 894,  a 
special  train  was  run  from  Jacksonville  in  Florida  to  the 
city  of  Washington,  seven  hundred  and  eighty  miles,  in- 
cluding thirty  four  stops,  in  less  than  sixteen  hours;  in  1800 
it  would  have  taken  nearer  sixteen  days  to  make  this  same 
trip.  Steam  on  the  water  was  accomplishing  equally  won- 
derful things.  In  June,  18 19,  the  steamship  "Savannah," 
made  the  ocean  run  to  Liverpool  in  twenty-six  days ;  in 
October,  1894,  the  Cunard  steamship  "Lucania"  made  the 
ocean  run  from  Queenstown  to  New  York  in  five  days, 
seven  hours,  and  twenty-three  minutes!  In  April,  1877, 
the  first  telephone  message  was  sent,  a  distance  of  three 
miles,  between  Boston  and  Somerville,  in  Massachusetts  ; 
in  1893  conversation  by  telephone  was  possible  between 
New  York  and  Chicago,  a  distance  of  more  than  a  thousand 
miles,  and  electricity,  practically  applied  to  daily  uses,  was 
lighting  towns  and  buildings  on  both  sides  of  the  sea,  while 
by  1893,  over  five  thousand  miles  of  electric  street  rail- 
ways —  "  trolley-roads  "  —  were  in  operation  in  the  United 
States.  Here,  indeed,  had  been  a  startling  change  since 
"old  Ben  Franklin's  day," — that  dear  old  philosopher  who 
wished  he  might  be  able  to  see  what  electricity  would  be 
doing  in  a  hundred  years. 

In  no  way  were  the  wonderful  achievements  of  peace 
more  widely  and  practically  displayed  than  at  the  splendid 
World's  Fair  at  Chicago,  which  opened  on  May  i,  1893,  as  a 


WHEN    MEN    BEGAN    TO    PROVE    VALUE    OF   THINGS.    353 

commemorative  jubilee  of  the  four  hundredth  anniversary 
of  the  discovery  of  America  by  Christopher  Columbus,  the 
Genoese  navigator.  To  the  success  of  this  mighty  Inter- 
national Exhibition,  all  the  nations  and  colonies  of  the  world 
contributed,  and  every  department  of  the  world's  progress 
and  pleasure  was  represented,  from  the  Parliament  of  Re- 
ligions to  the  Midway  Plaisance,  and  from  the  caravels  of 
Columbus  to  the  triumphs  of  electricity.  The  exposition 
grounds  covered  six  hundred  and  thirty  acres,  with  a  front- 
age of  a  mile  and  a  half  on  Lake  Michigan;  and  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  buildings,  great  and  small,  made  up  the 
glorious  "White  City,"  erected  within  a  mighty  city  which, 
at  the  time  of  the  World's  Fair,  had  a  population  of  one 
and  a  half  millions  —  the  outgrowth  in  sixty  years  from  the 
straggling  little  village  of  1832,  built  in  the  shelter  of  a 
frontier  fort,  and  with  a  population  of  less  than  three  hun- 
dred. In  no  single  instance  of  material  development  could 
the  Nineteenth  Century  show  a  greater  wonder  than  in  the 
marvellous  growth  of  the  city  of  Chicago,  the  metropolis 
of  the  prairies  and  the  lakes. 

As  to  moral  and  spiritual  growth,  what  could  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  display  in  the  decade  of  material  progress, 
four  hundred  years  after  Columbus  the  navigator  had 
thrown  open  the  door  of  a  new  world  ?  At  the  Parliament 
of  Religions,  convened  at  the  World's  P"air,  in  Chicago, 
all  religions  were  represented,  "  from  the  dignified  repre- 
sentatives of  hoary  Brahmanism,  to  the  exponents  of  the 
latest  born  of  Christian  sects."  No  similar  gathering  had 
ever  been  achieved  or  attempted  in  the  world's  history  ; 
and  in  nothing  was  the  spirit  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  — 
the  age  of  Lincoln  and  TolstoY,  of  Gladstone  and  Bismarck, 


354      THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

of  Cavour  and  Edison  —  more  significantly  displayed.  For 
it  represented  unity,  independence,  fraternity,  power,  and 
progress,  and  ably  proved,  as  Dr.  Momerie  declared,  "  that 
there  is  a  unity  of  religion  underlying  all  the  diversities  of 
religions ; "  the  archimandrite  from  ancient  Damascus 
agreed  with  Professor  Drummond  of  modern  Glasgow,  that 
the  spirit  of  love  was  "the  greatest  thing  in  the  world;" 
and  the  archbishop  of  Zante  joined  hands  with  Max  Miiller 
and  Lyman  Abbott  and  Cardinal  Gibbons  in  token  of  the 
fraternity  of  faith.  Was  not  that  typical  of  Nineteenth 
Century  progress  and  brotherhood  ?  Even  trials  for  her- 
esy, and  the  sullen  flicker  of  occasional  persecution  or 
bigotry,  could  not  belittle  or  curtail  the  real  religious 
growth  of  the  world. 

And  though  statistics  showed  in  1892  over  three  million 
registered  paupers  in  Europe  and  America,  taking  no  ac- 
count of  the  "  out-door  poor,"  even  among  these  philan- 
thropy and  charity  were  attempting  the  new  practical  work 
of  self-help  rather  than  unwise  and  unquestioning  giving. 
The  Salvation  Army,  organized  primarily  for  "  the  evan- 
gelization of  the  unchurched  masses,"  but  thinking  first  of 
saving  the  body  in  order  to  "save  the  soul"  of  man,  had, 
in  spite  of  peculiar  and  boisterous  methods,  gradually  won 
the  respect  and  encouragement  of  all  who  sought  the  bet- 
tering of  the  race,  and  by  1894  it  had  five  thousand  "corps" 
or  branches  in  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe ;  it  directed 
and  conducted  twelve  thousand  officers,  and  had  an  annual 
income  of  four  millions  of  dollars.  To  this  army  of  the 
"unchurched"  the  army  of  the  "churched,"  through  the 
various  branches  of  the  Christian  Church  —  Roman  Cath- 
olic,   Protestant,    Greek,    Abyssinian,    Coptic,    Armenian, 


WHEN    MEN    BEGAN   TO    PROVE   VALUE   OF   THINGS.    355 

Nestorian,  and  others,  showed  a  total,  in  1892,  of  nearly 
five  hundred  million  communicants,  scattered  throughout 
the  world,  of  which  nearly  one  hundred  and  twenty  mil- 
lions were  English-speaking  communities,  while  the  Chris- 
tian Sunday-schools  of  the  world,  nurseries  of  Christian 
civilization,  numbered,  in  1893,  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  thousand,  with  over  twenty  millions  of  scholars,  and 
more  than  two  miUion  teachers.  This  was  a  notable  ad- 
vance since  the  day,  one  hundred  years  before,  when 
Robert  Raikes,  the  English  "  newspaper  man,"  started  in 
his  home  town  of  Gloucester  the  uncertain  experiment 
which  was  the  beginning  of  the  Sunday-school  statistics  of 
the  world. 

But  even  in  the  early  nineties  the  world  needed  the 
energy  of  application  from  the  forces  of  good  as  well  as 
from  the  forces  of  scientific  progress.  Evil  still  stalked 
abroad  in  the  world ;  but,  thanks  to  the  wide  methods  of 
communication  and  publicity,  the  forces  of  evil  could  no 
longer  work  in  the  darkness  or  in  secret.  When,  in  1893, 
the  hired  assassins  and  brutal  soldiers  of  "  the  unspeakable 
Turk  "  began  the  bloody  massacre  of  the  Armenian  Chris- 
tians, whom  Europe  had  protected  as  "  Christians  and 
agents  of  civilization,"  all  the  world  flamed  into  an  out- 
burst of  indignant  protest.  Labor  disturbances,  too,  in 
which  the  workingnien,  unwisely  counselled  and  unwisely 
led,  resorted,  in  many  instances,  from  rightful  protest  to 
open  revolt ;  and  anarchy,  the  assassin  of  honest  labor, 
allied  itself  to  peaceful  agitation  until,  in  Europe  and 
America,  strikes  developed  into  riots  in  which  govern- 
mental authority  and  the  "  bayonet  cure  "  were  forced  to 
quell  the  rising,  only  to  still  further  antagonize  the  opposi- 


356      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

tion  of  labor  and  capital.  Anarchy  assassinated  the  presi- 
dent of  France  in  1895;  anarchy  disturbed  the  peace  in 
Italy  and  Spain,  and  set  back  the  real  progress  of  democ- 
racy ;  while,  even  in  free  America,  the  dozen  strikes  of 
1894  produced  lawlessness  and  disorder,  interfered  with 
traffic,  travel,  and  the  rights  of  citizens,  caused  a  loss  of 
many  millions  in  property  and  wages,  and  compelled  the 
president  of  the  United  States  to  take  "prompt  and  rigor- 
ous measures  "  to  suppress  the  riotous  demonstration,  and 
rallied  to  the  side  of  repression  the  "  law-abiding  masses 
of  the  people  "  and  the  power  and  resources  of  the  entire 
nation. 

But  all  this  was  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  account,  —  an 
account  swelled  quite  as  much  by  the  arrogance  of  money 
as  by  the  anarchy  of  labor.  On  the  other  side  the  balance 
really  stood  ;  for,  in  spite  of  evil  methods  and  the  curse  of 
selfishness,  neighborliness  increased,  and  progress  was  real 
and  lasting.  The  sea-encircled  lands  of  Australasia  drew 
nearer  towards  federation  ;  the  "  submerged  tenth  "  of  the 
British  slums  was  lifted,  by  practical  philanthropy,  nearer 
to  the  light.  In  1892  Gladstone,  now  recognized  as  truly 
the  "  Grand  Old  Man,"  was  made,  for  the  fourth  time,  pre- 
mier of  England,  and  bent  his  great  energies  to  the  "  frank 
concession  of  Home  Rule  to  Ireland  ;  "  one  hundred  thou- 
sand miles  of  telegraph  wire  were  bringing  India  into  touch 
with  the  world,  and  the  National  Congress  at  Calcutta 
in  1890  was  a  nearer  step  toward  native  representation 
and  social  reform  ;  Norway,  in  1891,  following  the  lead  of 
the  patriots  Bjornson  and  Sverdrup  and  other  champions 
of  Norwegian  liberty,  moved  boldly  for  independence  and 
popular  sovereignty ;    in    1 893    England    and   the  United 


WHEN    MEN    BEGAN    TO    PROVE   VALUE   OF   THINGS.     357 

States  agreed  to  peacefully  "  arbitrate  "  the  long-standing 
seal-killing  disputes  of  the  Behring  Sea  ;  and  in  1 894  the 
Hawaiian  people  overturned  their  monarchy,  and  declared 
the  republic  of  Hawaii.  That  same  year  the  new  method 
of  settling  international  disputes  by  arbitration  rather  than 
by  war  was  tried  even  by  the  volcanic  South  American 
nations  ;  and  the  khedive  of  Egypt,  looking  toward  inde- 
pendent action,  sought  to  free  himself  from  British  control. 
In  1893  universal  suffrage  was  established  under  a  peculiar 
plan  in  Belgium  ;  but  it  was  the  people's  victory.  Even 
in  Russia,  in  spite  of  the  horrors  of  Siberian  exile,  —  some- 
times cloaked  under  so  gentle  a  phrase  as  "  enforced  resi- 
dence by  administrative  authority," — the  accession  of  a 
new  czar,  Nicholas  H.,  in  1894,  was  the  beginning  of  a  new 
drift  toward  democracy,  even  though  the  new  ruler  declared 
it  an  "absurd  dream."  In  Sweden  the  form  of  address  to 
the  monarch  became,  instead  of  the  divine-right  grand- 
iloquence of  "Most  Gracious  Majesty,"  the  simpler  and 
more  republican  formula,  "To  the  king," — a  significant 
change.  In  1893  Bohemia,  that  "lemon  squeezed  by 
Austria,"  as  one  of  her  patriot  sons  called  the  ancient 
kingdom,  very  nearly  secured  home  rule  and  the  right  of 
suffrage,  and  did,  in  fact,  gain  a  distinct  advance  in  repre- 
sentation ;  and  even  Austria  itself,  that  empire  of  slow 
progress  and  mixed  nationalities,  though  advancing  only 
by  that  snail-like  "  forward,  march  !  "  of  "  two  steps  for- 
ward and  one  back,"  gradually  slipped  on  toward  liberal 
methods  and  a  union  through  concession. 

So,  as  the  "nineties"  grew  into  middle  age,  the  world 
assumed  a  more  steadfast  attitude  toward  peace  and  na- 
tionality.    Europe  was  no  longer  the  absolute  aristocracy 


358      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

of  the  earlier  years  of  the  century  ;  there  were  parhamen- 
tary  government  in  the  west,  constitutional  government  in 
the  centre,  and  even  a  diluted  despotism  in  the  east.  1890 
to  1895  saw  in  Europe  a  distinct  advance  upon  the  old 
illiberal  and  tyrannical  ways,  and  definitely  announced  "the 
fact  of  our  time,"  as  Benjamin  Kidd  called  it  —  "the 
arrival  of  Democracy." 

Across  the  sea,  democracy  was  establishing  itself  still 
more  securely.  Seventy  millions  of  Americans,  in  the 
great  republic  they  had  founded  and  maintained,  gave  the 
impulse  to  the  rest  of  the  vast  continent,  where  forty  mil- 
lions of  people,  in  sixteen  sister  republics,  stretched  from 
the  Rio  Grande  to  "  the  Horn  ; "  while  to  the  north,  from 
the  Bay  of  Fundy  to  "  the  far-flung,  fenceless  prairie  "  of 
"the  great  lone  land,"  the  Dominion  of  Canada  was  a 
democracy  in  everything  but  name. 

Still  following  the  dream  of  Columbus,  and  seeking  the 
east  by  way  of  the  west,  democracy,  crossing  America, 
had  bridged  the  sea  to  Asia ;  and  in  the  islands  of  Japan 
was  developing  with  surprising  vigor  the  ideas  of  constitu- 
tional nationality.  Too  vigorous,  indeed,  was  this  develop- 
ment for  the  overgrown  and  reactionary  neighbor  of  the 
island  empire  ;  and  when,  in  1 894,  there  was  trouble  in 
China's  vassal  kingdom,  Korea,  that  "  hermit  nation  "  pro- 
claimed its  independence,  and  solicited  the  help  of  Japan. 
Japan's  energy  enraged  China's  obstinacy;  and  at  once 
progress  and  reaction  were  pitted  against  one  another  in 
the  conflict  known  as  the  China-Japan  War  of  1894, — forty 
millions  against  four  hundred  millions !  Again  was  the 
value  of  modern  methods  and  unity  of  forces  demonstrated. 
For  China,  relying  upon  her  very  "bigness,"  and  supreme  in 


WHEN    MEN    BEGAN   TO    PROVE   VALUE   OF   THINGS.     359 

her  confidence  of  her  own  superiority  and  traditions,  showed 
herself  to  be  no  match  at  all  for  a  people  so  persevering, 
so  energetic,  and  so  adaptable  as  the  Japanese ;  up-to-date 
methods  faced  old  crudities  of  conflict  in  war,  and  on  land 
and  sea  China  was  absolutely  overmastered  and  defeated  ; 
and  the  same  spirit  of  energy  which  marked  the  age  of 
Edison  triumphed  in  the  modern  combat  between  the 
David  and  Goliath  of  the  Oriental  world.  For  it  was  west- 
ern civilization  that  had  trained  the  eye  and  drilled  the 
arm  of  Japan,  —  that  very  civilization  which  China  spurned 
as  "foreign"  and  contemptible,  and  would  have  none  of. 
German,  French,  and  American  officers  had  schooled  the 
Japanese  in  the  science  of  modern  war  ;  leading  officers  of 
the  Japanese  navy  were  Annapolis  men  ;  and  once  again, 
in  the  East,  as  had  been  not  unfrequently  displayed  in  the 
West,  was  shown  the  truth  of  the  old  Bible  saying,  that 
"  God  hath  chosen  the  weak  things  of  the  world  to  con- 
found the  things  which  are  mighty;"  only  in  this  case 
weakness  had  been  drilled  into  strength,  and  might  had 
been  lost  in  self-conceit. 

Mightier  things  even  than  governments  and  nations  were 
overthrown  about  this  time  by  the  spirit  of  modern  energy. 
The  progress,  or  rather,  the  application  of  scientific  inves- 
tigation, which  so  filled  the  closing  decade  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century,  defied  even  disease  and  death  in  its  bold 
stand  for  improvement.  Medicine  and  surgery  made  dis- 
tinct advances.  In  1890  the  German  Dr.  Koch  an- 
nounced his  discovery  of  a  remedy  for  consumption,  and 
the  Frenchman  Louis  Pasteur  boldly  attempted  the  cure 
of  hydrophobia  by  inoculation.  The  use  of  anaesthetics 
and  antiseptics,  developed  into  wonderful  exactness,  "robbed 


360     THE   STORY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

the  surgeon's  knife "  of  its  terrors,  while  English  and 
American  physicians  showed  that  even  the  dangers  of 
chloroform  might  be  prevented  by  proper  treatment.  A 
reform  in  hospital  methods  was  one  of  the  greatest  tri- 
umphs of  the  early  nineties ;  the  Geneva  Cross  grew  into 
the  still  nobler  Red  Cross  Societies  to  ameliorate  the 
horrors  of  the  battle-field  ;  while  the  theory  of  disease 
germs  revolutionized  the  formerly  accepted  laws  of  sanita- 
tion,  and  lessened  the  terrors  of  what  were  known  as 
zymotic  diseases  —  that  is,  infectious  and  contagious  sick- 
nesses, like  small-pox,  diphtheria,  and  their  dread  associates. 
The  care  of  the  body  and  the  strengthening  of  the  mind 
are  almost  kindred  advances,  and  the  era  of  new  methods 
in  medicine  and  surgery  was  also  the  era  of  new  methods 
in  education.  "  Aliens,  idiots,  women,  and  Indians  not 
taxed"  —  even  in  progressive  America  these,  in  the  early 
days  of  the  century,  had  been  excluded  classes,  so  far  as 
representation  and  suffrage  were  concerned.  But  in  1890 
how  great  was  the  change!  All  over  the  civilized  world 
aliens  were  protected  by  reasonable  laws ;  lunatics  and 
criminals  were  cared  for  by  wiser,  less  brutal,  and  more 
reformatory  methods ;  Indians  and  conquered  tribes  were 
dealt  with  more  justly;  and  woman  found  entrance  into 
nearly  all  the  occupations  and  professions,  while  the  mar- 
vellous advance  of  the  new  system  of  "  Higher  Education  " 
raised  her  to  a  position  of  possibility  in  which  culture  and 
intelligence  recognized  no  limitations  of  sex  in  effort  and 
achievement.  In  nothing,  probably,  did  the  Nineteenth 
Century  display  more  clearly  its  spirit  of  democratic  and 
universal  progress  than  in  its  improvement  in  the  condition 
of  woman  throughout  the  civilized  world. 


WHEN    MEN    BEGAN   TO    PROVE   VALUE    OF   THINGS.     36 1 

"I  have  no  fear,"  said  Mr.  Gladstone  in  1893,  "lest  the 
woman  should  encroach  upon  the  power  of  man  ;  the  fear 
I  have  is  lest  we  should  invite  her,  unwillingly,  to  tres- 
pass upon  the  delicacy,  the  purity,  the  refinement,  the  ele- 
vation, of  her  own  nature,  which  are  the  present  sources 
of  its  power."  The  voice  of  woman  was,  however,  potent 
in  many  ways  in  many  lands  ;  and  in  the  United  States  of 
America,  leader  in  democratic  reform,  the  right  of  woman 
to  a  voice  in  government,  especially  in  matters  of  ta.xation 
and  education,  was  in  1895  recognized  and  granted,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  in  twenty-four  of  the  fifty  States 
and  Territories. 

So  with  a  distinct  advance  and  a  direct  application  of  all 
the  new  methods  in  thought,  work,  and  life,  the  Nineteenth 
Century  drew  toward  its  close.  Problems  were  still  un- 
solved, wrongs  still  unrighted,  evils  still  predominant. 
But  "  the  silent  and  strenuous  rivalry  "  which  occupied  the 
energies  of  the  world  worked  for  good  rather  than  for 
evil;  and  the  "end  of  the  century,"  the  yf;/  de  sitcle,  as 
people  called  this  close  of  a  period,  was  putting  the  work 
of  man  in  his  hundred  years  of  development  to  practical 
use,  while  the  strengthing  and  bracing  influence  of  energy, 
application,  and  endeavor  were  leaving  an  enduring  mark, 
not  only  upon  the  history  of  the  time,  but  upon  the  resist- 
less progress  of  the  race. 


CHAPTER    XXI. 

HOW    THE    CENTURY    CLOSED. 
{From  i8g^  to  igoo  ) 

"  T^HE  silent  and  strenuous  rivalry  of  the  race,"  as  the 
1  conditions  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  have  been 
called,  had  attained  a  new  height  of  effort  in  1895.  The 
wars  for  nationalism  were  over.  Armed  peace  prevailed 
in  Europe ;  bitter  rivalries  were  smothered  by  the  fear  of 
man  ;  and  though  the  continent  of  Europe  was  still  mutu- 
ally antagonistic,  and  national  distrust  prevailed,  peace  and 
neighborliness  were  nevertheless  forced  on  all  the  Chris- 
tian nations  by  the  very  condition  of  things  ;  and  while  the 
cost  of  standing  armies,  enormous  navies,  and  mighty  arma- 
ments kept  the  people  poor,  it  also  kept  them  peaceful, 
save  as  political  and  social  upheavals  worried  them  all  into 
watchfulness  of  each  other,  and  forced  them  into  an  intelli- 
gent growth  in  manhood,  that  came  even  in  spite  of  them- 
selves. 

"  To  the  thoughtful  mind,  the  outlook  at  the  close  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,"  wrote  Benjamin  Kidd  in  1895,  "is 
profoundly  interesting.  History  can  furnish  no  parallel  to 
it.  The  problems  which  loom  across  the  threshold  of  the 
new  century  surpass  in  magnitude  any  that  civilization  has 
hitherto  had  to  encounter.  We  seem  to  have  reached  a 
time  in  which  there  is  abroad  in  men's  minds  an  instinctive 
feeling  that  a  definite  stage  in  the  evolution  of  Western 

362 


HOW   THE   CENTURY   CLOSED.  363 

civilization  is  drawing  to  a  close,  and  that  we  are  entering 
on  a  new  era." 

That  new  era  was  the  outcome  of  the  democratic  ad- 
vance and  the  wonders  of  industrial  inventions  that  had  so 
notably  marked  the  Nineteenth  Century.  These  new  con- 
ditions, each  of  which  existed  because  of  the  other,  were 
themselves  the  outgrowth  of  the  New  Europe  that  suc- 
ceeded the  downfall  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte  in  18 14.  The 
vast  changes  which,  after  that  date,  came  to  the  world, 
were  because  the  impelling  necessity  of  self-preservation 
had  aroused  men  to  the  development  of  practical  science, 
industrial  expansion,  and  the  application  of  mechanical  in- 
ventions. Steam  in  manufacturing  and  agriculture ;  scien- 
tific methods  in  the  construction  of  roads,  bridges,  viaducts, 
and  tunnels  ;  improved  methods  of  mining  and  handling 
such  earth-products  as  coal,  metals,  and  petroleum  ;  and  the 
application  of  machinery  to  the  further  working  of  these 
products  by  furnaces,  steam  hammers,  machinery,  and 
tools  ;  marvellous  development  in  the  practical  usefulness  of 
the  two  greatest  forces  of  modern  civilization  in  labor-saving 
processes  of  steam  and  electricity,  so  that,  in  1900,  steam 
had  usurped  the  place  of  water,  wind,  and  horse-power  in 
every  department  of  production  and  locomotion,  while 
electricity,  by  furnishing  direct  and  marvellous  means  of 
instantaneous  communication  and  illumination,  had  abso- 
lutely altered  the  conditions  of  life  ;  remarkable  advances 
in  chemical  knowledge,  —  matches,  fertilizers,  gas-lighting, 
sugar,  colorings,  photography,  explosives,  medicines,  bleach- 
ing and  tanning,  preserved  and  condensed  foods,  wood-pulp, 
and  other  equally  useful  productions  ;  the  scientific  advance 
in  farming,  agricultural  methods,  cattle-  and  stock-breeding 


364      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

and  raising,  with  the  remarkable  applications  of  anaesthet- 
ics and  antiseptics,  which  have  practically  conquered  pain, 
—  all  these,  as  Professor  Seignobos  declares,  have  materi- 
ally "  affected  international  politics  by  changing  the  practi- 
cal conditions  of  government,  and  transforming  the  con- 
ditions of  society." 

"  Only  one  hundred  years  ago,"  says  Benjamin  Kidd, 
"  nations  and  communities  were  as  distant  from  each  other 
in  time  as  they  were  at  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era. 
Since  then  the  ends  of  the  world  have  been  drawn  together, 
and  civilized  society  is  becoming  one  vast,  highly  organized 
interdependent  whole  —  the  wants  and  requirements  of 
every  part  regulated  by  economic  laws,  bewildering  in  their 
intricacy  —  with  a  nervous  system  of  five  million  miles  of 
telegraph  wire,  and  an  arterial  system  of  railways  and  ocean 
steamships,  along  which  the  currents  of  trade  and  popula- 
tion flow  with  a  rapidity  and  regularity  previously  unima- 
gined." 

" The  old  bonds  of  society,"  he  continues,  "have  been 
loosened  ;  old  forces  are  becoming  extinct ;  whole  classes 
have  been  swept  away,  and  new  classes  have  arisen.  The 
great  army  of  industrial  workers  throughout  the  world  is 
almost  entirely  a  growth  of  the  past  hundred  years.  Vast 
displacements  of  population  have  taken  place  and  are  still 
taking  place.  The  expansion  of  towns,  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  features  of  the  industrial  revolution,  still  con- 
tinues unabated,  no  less  in  America  and  Australia  than  in 
England,  Germany,  and  France ;  and  civilization  is  every- 
where massing  together,  within  limited  areas,  large  popula- 
tions, extremely  sensitive  to  innumerable  social  stimuli 
which  did  not  exist  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.     The 


HOW    THE   CENTURY    CLOSED.  365 

air  is  full  of  new  battle-cries,  of  the  sound  of  the  gathering 
and  marshalling  of  new  forces,  and  the  reorganization  of 
old  ones." 

This  is  an  excellent  "snap-shot"  at  the  condition  of  the 
world  in  1895.  Revolutions  and  the  struggle  for  nation- 
ality and  union  had  done  a  wonderful  work  for  human 
progress.  But  the  Franco-German  war  of  1870  was  the 
last  of  these  national  crises.  The  reactionary  period  had 
ended  ;  the  period  of  absolutism  had  given  place  to  democ- 
racy ;  and  revolutions  were  those  of  peace  and  progress, 
rather  than  of  personal  and  imperial  rivalry.  The  Tolstoi 
theory  had  affected  war  as  well  as  society ;  and  conflicts 
were  waged  for  what  are  called  "altruistic"  or  beneficial 
reasons,  instead  of  for  private  and  personal  aggrandizement. 
The  one-man  power  had  given  place  to  the  power  of  the 
people;  and  even  the  last  of  these  ambitious  individuals  — 
Bismarck  and  William  II.  in  Germany,  Disraeli  in  England, 
and  Napoleon  III.  in  France — had  helped  in  this  transition, 
and  stood  for  "  democratic  monarchy  "  rather  than  indi- 
vidual despotism.  The  sovereignty  of  the  people  had  taken 
the  place  of  the  personality  of  the  sovereign. 

The  world,  however,  was  by  no  means  at  peace.  Every 
year  from  1895  to  1900  saw  a  new  war;  but  the  purposes 
for  which  those  wars  were  waged  differed  altogether,  as  I 
have  said,  from  the  wars  of  the  first  three-quarters  of  the 
century.  1895  saw  the  close  of  the  war  between  China  and 
Japan,  and  the  beginning  of  the  war  that  ultimately  drove 
Spain  from  America,  when  the  patriots  of  Cuba  made  their 
final  stand  for  liberty  ;  1896  saw  the  revolt  of  the  Armenian 
subjects  of  Turkey  against  the  cruelties  of  the  Sultan,  and 
their  appeal  to  the  Christian  nations  of  Europe  ;  1 897  saw 


366     THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

the  war  between  Greece  and  Turkey  for  the  readjustment 
of  boundaries  and  the  protection  of  the  persecuted ;  1 898 
witnessed  a  war  between  Spain  and  the  United  States, 
waged  for  the  liberation  of  Cuba  from  the  Spanish  yoke ; 
1899  saw  the  triumph  of  arbitration  over  war  in  the  case  of 
the  Venezuela  dispute,  and  it  also  saw  the  outbreak  of  war 
in  South  Africa,  which  in  1900  became  a  struggle  for  civili- 
zation and  Anglo-Saxon  supremacy  in  the  dark  continent, 
against  the  obstinacy  of  limited  ideas,  and  the  last  of  the 
one-man  power  in  a  so-called  but  despotic  republic  —  the 
stubborn  mountaineers  of  the  Transvaal  pitted  against  the 
power  and  will  of  progressive  England. 

The  world  was  by  no  means  at  peace ;  but  would  uni- 
versal peace  mean  universal  progress.?  The  young  Em- 
peror of  Russia  evidently  thought  so,  though  with  a  million 
armed  men  at  his  back;  for  in  August,  1898,  he  sent  to  all 
the  powers  of  the  world  a  proposal  for  an  international 
agreement  for  disarmament  and  universal  peace.  The 
principles  of  Tolstof  the  philanthropist  were  bearing  fruit 
in  the  last  place  of  all  where  such  proposals  might  be  ex- 
pected —  his  own  homeland  of  autocratic  Russia. 

"The  maintenance  of  universal  peace  and  a  possible  re- 
duction of  the  excessive  armaments  which  weigh  upon  all 
nations  in  the  present  condition  of  affairs  all  over  the 
world,"  said  Nicholas  the  Czar,  supreme  lord  of  one  hun- 
dred governments,  and  one  hundred  and  thirty  millions  of 
people,  "  represent  the  ideal  aims  towards  which  the  effort 
of  all  governments  should  be  directed.  .  .  ,  The  present 
moment  seems  a  very  favorable  one  for  seeking,  by  way  of 
international  discussion,  the  most  effective  means  of  assur- 
ing for  all  peoples  the  blessings  of  a  real  and  lasting  peace. 


HOW   THE   CENTURY   CLOSED.  367 

and  above  all  things  for  fixing  a  limit  to  the  progressive 
development  of  present  armaments.  ...  It  is  the  su- 
preme duty,  at  the  present  moment,  of  all  states  to  put 
some  limit  to  these  unceasing  armaments,  and  to  find  means 
of  averting  the  calamities  which  threaten  the  whole  world." 

Actuated  by  this  humanitarian  desire,  the  Czar  proposed, 
"to  all  governments  accredited  to  the  Imperial  Court," 
the  meeting  of  a  conference  to  discuss  this  grave  problem. 
"  Such  a  conference,"  he  concluded,  "  with  God's  help, 
would  be  a  happy  augury  for  the  opening  of  a  new  century. 
It  would  powerfully  concentrate  the  efforts  of  all  states 
which  sincerely  wish  to  see  the  triumph  of  the  grand  idea 
of  universal  peace  over  the  elements  of  trouble  and  dis- 
cord. It  would,  at  the  same  time,  bind  their  agreements 
by  the  principles  of  law  and  equity  which  support  the 
security  of  states  and  the  welfare  of  peoples." 

This  proposition  from  the  Czar  of  all  the  Russias  sounded 
as  grand  and  noble  as,  coming  from  such  a  bayonet-upheld 
autocrat,  it  seemed  astounding.  But  the  powers  of  the 
world  expressed  their  sympathy  with  his  aims,  and  agreed 
to  his  proposal  for  a  Universal  Peace  Conference,  which 
duly  assembled  at  the  Hague,  the  capital  of  Holland,  in 
May,  1899,  and  was  composed  of  delegates  officially  ap- 
pointed by  the  governments  of  twenty-six  of  the  nations 
of  the  world,  from  St.  Petersburg  to  Washington,  includ- 
ing even  the  old-time  Oriental  despotisms  of  China  and 
Japan. 

It  seemed,  indeed,  as  if  the  vision  of  Tennyson,  sixty 
years  before,  was  about  to  be  fulfilled  — 

"  When  the  war-drums  throb  no  longer,  and  the  battle-flags  are  furled 
In  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  federation  of  the  world." 


T,68     THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

It  seemed  as  if  the  dream  of  Longfellow,  the  American 
peace-lover,  as  he  stood  in  the  arsenal  at  Springfield  in 
1843,  was  to  be  practically  attempted  : 

"  Were  half  the  power  that  fills  the  world  with  terror, 
Were  half  the  wealth  bestowed  on  camps  and  courts, 
Given  to  redeem  the  human  mind  from  error, 
There  were  no  need  of  arsenals  and  forts." 

"  The  power  that  fills  the  world  with  terror  "  was  as 
much  more  terrible  in  1899  than  it  was  in  1843  as  fifty 
years  of  advance  in  the  making  of  guns  and  explosives 
could'  render  it.  The  armaments  of  the  world,  which  the 
Czar  wished  the  nations  to  limit  or  curtail,  amounted  in 
1899  to  four  million  men,  on  a  "peace"  footing,  with  re- 
serves to  be  called  on  in  case  of  war  of  ten  times  that 
number  and  a  "fighting  population"  many  times  greater; 
the  naval  strength,  in  actual  service  and  in  reserve,  was 
proportionate  to  this  tremendous  land  total,  while  the  forts 
and  land  and  water  defences  were  equally  enormous.  The 
"  wealth  bestowed  on  camps  and  courts,"  to  provide  for 
and  maintain  the  armed  peace  of  the  world,  was  almost 
beyond  calculation  ;  the  expenditures  in  the  United  States 
alone  for  army  and  navy  support  during  the  one  hundred 
and  ten  years  of  the  life  of  the  republic  (from  1789  to 
1899)  exceeded  seven  thousand  millions  of  dollars  ;  the 
mind  can  scarcely  grasp  the  total  war  expenditures  of  the 
world  during  the  one  hundred  years  of  the  busy  and  pro- 
gressive but  often  pugnacious  Nineteenth  Century,  which 
had,  thanks  to  the  Czar  of  Russia,  the  prospect  of  universal 
peace  at  its  close. 

But  this  peace  was  not  at  once  to  come.  Even  while 
the  Russian  Czar  was  sending  abroad  his  invitation  to  a 


now   THE  CENTURY   CLOSED.  369 

peace  conference,  two  of  the  great  powers  of  the  world 
were  pitted  in  a  war  for  humanity's  sake. 

The  long  continued  struggle  of  the  Cubans  for  relief 
from  Spanish  tyranny  —  a  tyranny  which  for  a  hundred 
years  had  been  an  eyesore  to  the  world  and  especially  to 
Cuba's  nearest  neighbor,  the  United  States  —  broke  out 
again  in  open  rebellion  in  1895,  and  so  disturbed  com- 
mercial and  industrial  relations  between  Cuba  and  the 
United  States,  to  say  nothing  of  the  conscience  of  a  nation 
schooled  to  independence,  that  the  United  States,  in  1896, 
demanded  reforms  from  Spain,  and  when  these  were 
refused,  or  seen  to  be  only  superficial,  threatened  armed 
intervention.  In  February,  1898,  an  American  battleship 
sent  into  Havana  harbor  for  humane  purposes  and  the 
protection  of  American  interests,  was  destroyed  by  a  sub- 
marine mine,  with  great  loss  of  life  ;  and  naturally  Spain 
was  held  accountable  for  the  outrage.  Thereupon  the 
United  States  insisted  upon  the  withdrawal  of  Spain  from 
Cuba ;  and  when  this  was  refused,  war  was  declared.  The 
six  great  powers  of  Europe,  in  the  interests  of  peace  and 
arbitration,  begged  the  president  of  the  United  States  to 
agree  to  a  peaceful  settlement ;  but  the  time  for  that  had 
passed,  and  the  president  declared  that  only  forcible  meas- 
ures could  end  a  situation  that  had  become  "  intolerable." 
Regulars  and  volunteers  were  assembled  in  an  army  of 
invasion  ;  the  naval  and  military  forces  of  the  United  States 
were  hurried  into  action  ;  and  in  just  one  hundred  and  thir- 
teen days  —  from  the  declaration  of  the  war  on  April  12 
to  the  signing  of  the  preliminary  treaty  of  peace  on 
August  12 — the  brief  but  vigorous  humanitarian  war 
against  Spain  had  secured  all  for  which  war  was  waged. 


370      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

Cuba  was  wrested  from  the  grasp  of  Spain,  and  put  on  the 
road  toward  independence,  and  the  heirs  to  the  glory  of 
Columbus  had  lost  their  imperial  heritage  after  four 
hundred  years  of  tyrannical  possession. 

But  the  war  for  the  liberation  of  Cuba  had  done  more. 
In  spite  of  itself  the  Republic  of  the  United  States  was 
forced  from  its  continental  isolation  to  the  position  of  a 
world  power.  The  thunder  of  Dewey's  guns  at  Manila 
announced  the  entrance  of  a  new  competitor  in  the  field  of 
foreign  authority  and  action  ;  and  by  the  treaty  of  peace 
with  Spain,  signed  by  the  President  of  the  United  States 
on  the  sixth  of  February,  1899,  the  great  American  Re- 
public became,  almost  in  spite  of  itself,  a  colony-owning 
nation.  The  Philippines,  and  Tutiula  of  the  Samoan  group  ; 
Hawaii,  annexed  in  July,  1898  ;  Porto  Rico,  and  the  small 
Pacific  islands  of  Guam  and  Wake,  were  ceded  to  and  oc- 
cupied by  the  United  States ;  and  ten  million  people  of 
alien  blood  and  speech  came  under  the  protection  of  the 
Stars  and  Stripes.  Cuba  was  freed,  and,  under  American 
tutelage,  was  led  onward  to  a  secure  and  stable  indepen- 
dence ;  and  a  war  begun  for  humanity  ended  in  colonial 
empire. 

Colonial  possession  and  permanence  were  giving  new 
labors  and  new  duties  to  other  nations  of  the  world.  In 
1895  thirty-eight  thousand  Outlanders,  or  foreign  residents 
of  the  Dutch  Republic  of  South  Africa,  where  wonderful 
mining  properties  had  been  developed  since  1880,  peti- 
tioned the  Volksraad,  or  Dutch  government,  of  the  South 
African  Republic,  for  better  representation  and  a  redress 
of  grievances.  Their  petition  was  denied ;  and  when  the 
Outlanders  endeavored  to  enforce  their  demand,  a  hasty 


HOW   THE   CENTURY    CLOSED.  37 1 

and  ill-timed  incursion  into  the  Transvaal  in  1896,  led  by 
Dr.  Jameson  of  the  British  South  African  Company, 
brought  about  unfortunate  complications  that  hindered  the 
promised  reforms,  and  led  finally,  in  October,  1899,  to  a 
war  for  possession  and  right  of  suzerainty  between  the 
Transvaal  Republic  and  Great  Britain.  The  South  Afri- 
can Republics  were,  while  practically  independent,  by  agree- 
ment subject  to  the  over-lordship  of  the  Queen  of  England 
—  in  other  words,  they  were  self-governing  vassals.  But  the 
predominant  influence  of  one  self-willed  and  remarkable 
man,  Paul  Kruger,  President  of  the  Transvaal,  pitted 
against  the  equally  predominant  influence  of  another  and 
equally  determined  man,  Cecil  Rhodes,  of  Kimberley, 
forced  the  burgher  republic  into  a  war  for  independence ; 
and  the  Nineteenth  Century,  which  opened  in  the  struggle 
of  a  people  for  independence,  closed  in  much  the  same  way. 

But  between  the  France  of  1799,  battling  for  progress, 
and  the  South  African  Republic  of  1899,  struggling 
against  it,  the  difference  is  vast ;  and  Paul  Kruger,  of  the 
Transvaal,  the  last  leader  of  limitation,  could  scarcely  hope 
to  stand  successfully  in  the  pathway  of  that  world  develop- 
ment for  which  England  stands.  To  the  mad  dash  of 
Cervera,  the  Spaniard,  through  the  fiery  gauntlet  of  San- 
tiago, and  the  heroic  stand  of  the  Afrikander,  Cronje,  "the 
old  lion  of  the  veldt,"  ringed  about  by  British  guns,  the 
world  owes  and  will  ever  pay  the  tribute  of  praise  for 
dauntless  valor  ;  but  alike  the  cause  of  Spain  and  that  of 
the  Boers  of  South  Africa  were  against  the  spirit  of  the 
age,  and  God  permits  no  obstacle  long  to  bar  the  onward 
march  of  civilization. 

A  march  against  obstacles  is  always  more  triumphant 


372      THE    STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

and  self-helpful  than  an  unopposed  advance  ;  and  even  when 
1895  had  brought  the  Nineteenth  Century  to  the  high 
plane  of  achievement,  there  were  obstacles  to  surmount 
and  barriers  to  clear  away.  And  these  barriers  were  not 
always  thrown  up  by  the  ignorant  and  timid  —  the  natural 
foes  of  progress  ;  they  were  raised  by  the  backward-look- 
ing statesmen  and  thinkers  in  every  land  (the  Tories  of 
the  world),  who  "  clave  to  the  way  of  their  fathers  ; "  or, 
like  Ephraim  of  old,  were  "joined  to  their  idols,"  and 
would  neither  accept  nor  follow  the  beckoning  hand  of  the 
new  century.  There  were  doctors  of  the  old  school,  who, 
though  mighty  men  in  their  profession,  yet  absolutely  op- 
posed the  advance  and  blessings  of  anaesthetics  and  anti- 
septics, those  marvellous  destroyers  of  pain  ;  there  were 
scientists  who  placed  phrenology  above  vaccination  as  a 
help  to  man,  arrogantly  denying  the  value  of  a  discovery 
that  had  almost  banished  from  the  earth  smallpox,  that 
scourge  of  all  the  centuries  before  the  Nineteenth  ;  there 
were  well-meaning  but  short-sighted  statesmen  and  patri- 
ots who  believed  in  the  selfishness  of  isolation  and  limita- 
tion rather  than  in  the  development  that  shrinks  the  ocean 
space  into  ferry  crossings,  and  brings  into  closer  touch  the 
peoples  and  nations  of  the  world ;  who,  learning  only  wrong 
lessons  from  the  past,  were,  like  the  timid  lover  of  Mon- 
trose's verse : 

"  He  either  fears  his  fate  too  much, 
Or  his  deserts  are  small, 
That  dares  not  put  it  to  the  touch. 
To  gain  or  lose  it  all  1  " 

There  were  those,  old  enough  to  know  better,  who  believed 
in  the  past  so  implicitly  —  even  though  the  story  of  the 


HOW   THE   CENTURY    CLOSED.  373 

Nineteenth  Century  is  fairly  punctuated  with  constitutional 
changes  —  that  they  would  not  admit  progress  possible  to 
that  greatest  of  all  the  Constitutions  of  the  world,  but  of 
which  Franklin,  greatest  of  all  the  philosophers  of  his  day, 
said,  as  he  signed  it:  "  It  is  not  perfect;  it  has  many  faults." 

So,  through  the.  last  years  of  the  century,  objectors, 
critics,  and  croakers  were  always  in  evidence  —  from  those 
who  sneered  at  the  triumphs  of  electricity,  and  repeated 
the  story  of  Stephenson  and  the  cow  on  the  track,  to  those 
who  made  barbarism  no  bar  to  independence,  misquoted 
Lincoln  and  Jefferson,  and  misjudged  Cromwell.  But  the 
trend  of  the  world  was,  fortunately,  away  from  the  pessi- 
mist and  the  fossil.  The  world  of  1900  exists  because  of 
progressive  thought  and  action ;  and,  as  James  Russell 
Lowell  said  in  his  noble  essay  on  Democracy,  "  An  appeal 
to  the  reason  of  the  people  has  never  been  known  to  fail, 
in  the  long  run." 

The  years  from  1895  to  1900  saw  Cuba  in  revolt,  and 
Armenia  protesting  against  persecution  and  massacre  ; 
they  saw  arbitration  successful  over  the  unnecessary 
threat  of  war  in  both  hemispheres,  and  a  tendency  to  a 
closer  friendship  among  the  English-speaking  races  of  the 
world  ;  they  saw  attempts  toward  international  adjustment, 
church  union,  postal  union,  commercial  union,  and  univer- 
sal peace  ;  but  they  also  saw  the  rashness  of  selfishness  in 
South  Africa,  war  between  Turkey  and  Greece  over  "  old 
scars,"  and  the  intervention  of  Europe  in  favor  of  the 
"  unspeakable  Turk,"  rather  than  the  liberty-loving  Greek  ; 
they  saw  assassination  in  high  places,  in  Spain,  Austria,  and 
Italy,  in  Mexico,  Brazil,  and  Persia,  in  France,  and  China, 
and  the   Balkans  ;  they  saw  the  baffling   injustice  of  the 


374      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

Dreyfus  case,  a  blot  upon  the  fair  name  of  France  ;  they 
saw  the  advance  toward  union  of  the  republics  of  Central 
America,  in  1896,  and  the  subsequent  collapse  of  the 
"  United  States  of  Central  America,"  through  jealousies 
and  selfishness  ;  they  saw,  greatest  of  all  in  effort  and 
failure,  the  assembling  at  the  Hague,  in  May,  1898,  of  the 
Universal  Peace  Conference  proposed  by  the  young  Czar 
of  Russia,  and  its  adjournment  in  July,  with  little  accom- 
plished beyond  the  proposed  establishment  of  a  Court  of 
Arbitration  for  the  settlement  of  disputes  between  nations 
and  the  reaffirmation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  by  the  dele- 
gates from  the  United  States.  Universal  Peace  was  thus 
pushed  off  as  a  problem  for  the  twentieth  century  to  solve. 
K-'  V  Success,  which  so  often  comes  because  of  failure,  had 
marked  the  century  even  to  the  close.  Success  and  fail- 
ure in  politics,  diplomacy,  government,  statesmanship,  and 
international  effort  had  been  paralleled  by  success  and  fail- 
ures in  economic,  social,  scientific,  and  material  endeavors. 
Capital,  roused  to  its  own  defence  by  the  aggressions  of 
labor,  answered  union  with  combines,  strikes  with  trusts, 
competition  with  syndicates,  and  legislation  with  legisla- 
tion. Opposing  parties  in  the  United  States  loudly  pro- 
claimed against  trusts  as  a  "  discrimination  in  favor  of 
wealth  and  against  individual  enterprise,"  "hurtful  to  the 
people  and  something  to  be  prohibited  and  abolished ; " 
but  before  the  close  of  1899  there  were  five  hundred  of 
these  combines,  consolidations,  pools,  or  agreements,  popu- 
larly termed  "  trusts"  known  to  exist  in  the  United  States  > 
and  in  all  civilized  countries,  where  speculation  crowds 
upon  production  ;  "  the  new  aristocracy  of  personal  wealth,'' 
as  Professor  Seignobos  characterizes  this  energy  of  banker. 


now   THE   CENTURY    CLOSED.  375 

manufacturer,  and  merchant,  "  had  made  a  place  for  itself 
in  politics  by  furnishing  the  main  stay  of  the  liberal  parties, 
and  trying  to  guide  the  democratic  mass  of  the  nation."      ^ — rj 

The  application  of  the  triumphs  of  science  to  t^e  grow- 
ing needs  of  the  world,  which  especially  marked  this  last 
decade  of  the  century  —  the  age  of  Edison,  as  we  have 
chosen  to  term  it  —  had,  however,  more  success  than  fail- 
ures to  its  credit.  The  development  of  electricity  was  the 
chief  marvel  of  the  age,  especially  when  combined  with  the 
advance  in  engineering.  As  there  was  no  space  too  wide 
to  be  spanned  or  tunnelled,  so  there  was  no  force  too 
great  to  be  controlled.  Projects  were  considered  or  com- 
pleted which  the  mid-century  would  have  deemed  impos- 
sible, and  the  third  quarter  stupendous.  Niagara  was 
forced  to  play  the  part  of  a  great  mill-dam,  and  turn  the 
busy  wheels,  and  light  the  shops  and  streets  of  Buffalo 
twenty-two  miles  away  —  "  perhaps  the  most  stupendous 
engineering  effort  ever  undertaken  ;  "  it  was  proposed  to 
turn  the  vast  Saraha  desert  into  a  fertile  garden  by  irri- 
gation, even  as  the  Arizona  deserts  in  America  had  been 
reclaimed  ;  to  bridge  or  tunnel  the  English  Channel ;  to 
connect  by  railway  Cairo  and  the  Cape  in  Africa,  and  Van- 
couver and  Patagonia  in  America,  even  as  Russian  enter- 
prise, when  the  century  closed,  was  already  pushing  for- 
ward the  tracks  of  the  great  Siberian  railway,  and  join- 
ing St.  Petersburg  to  Vladivostok,  the  greatest  railway 
scheme  attempted,  by  which,  and  with  its  connecting 
lines  of  railway  and  steamship,  it  will  be  possible,  in  1904, 
to  go  "round  the  world  in  thirty  days."  Telegraph  lines 
were  stretching  in  every  direction  —  into  the  heart  of 
darkest  Africa,  across,  around,  and  beneath  the  world  ;  and 


1^6      THE    STORY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

the  close  of  the  century  had  even  witnessed  the  marvel  of 
wireless  telegraphy  and  communication  between  ship  and 
shore  by  waves  of  sound  and  currents  of  transmission. 
Indeed,  .there  seemed  nothing  too  vast  to  comprehend, 
too  wonderful  to  attempt,  or  too  impossible  to  achieve. 
In  1899  the  world  was  seamed  by  four  hundred  thousand 
miles  of  railway  tracks,  joined  and  underlaced  by  one 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  miles  of  submarine  cable, 
crossed  by  four  million  miles  of  telegraph  wire,  and 
brought  ear  to  ear  with  millions  of  miles  of  telephone, 
while  those  new  servants  of  man,  the  electric  light  and 
the  photographic  camera,  were  accomplishing  marvels  for 
the  moral  as  well  as  the  commercial  growth  of  the  world. 
The  electric  spark,  which  has  diminished  crime  by  flood- 
ing the  dark  places  with  the  tell-tale  light,  was  also  in 
1896,  by  the  discovery  of  the  X-rays  by  Professor  Ront- 
gen  of  Wiirzburg,  made  to  penetrate  and  register,  by  the 
help  of  photography,  matter,  and  substances  never  before 
revealed  to  the  eye  of  man.  "  With  the  exception  of  anti- 
septics and  anaesthetics,"  says  Professor  Thompson,  "  no 
discovery  of  the  century  has  done  so  much  for  operative 
surgery." 

The  linotype  which  sets  and  stereotypes,  line  upon  line, 
bars  of  type  ready  for  the  press  ;  the  invention  of  the 
Frenchman,  Chassagne,  for  actually  photographing  in 
colors ;  the  discovery  by  the  Englishman,  Professor  Ram- 
sey, of  the  element  known  as  liquid  air,  "a  fifth  constituent 
of  the  atmosphere,"  with  which  wonderful  things  are 
possible ;  the  revolutionizing  of  ship-building  by  the 
"whale-backs,"  and  of  hou.se-building  by  the  towering 
"sky-scrapers,"  —  these  and   many  other  remarkable  ad- 


HOW   THE   CENTURY   CLOSED.  377 

vances  in  discovery,  invention,  and  application,  marked 
the  decade  of  energy,  the  era  of  Edison,  the  end  of  the 
century. 

Edison  and  Tesla,  Pasteur  and  Rontgen,  Koch  and 
Joule,  Marconi  and  Gray,  Bell  and  Kelvin,  and  a  score  of 
investigators,  discoverers,  and  adapters,  helped  to  make  the 
age  the  "very  top  and  crown"  of  scientific  progress. 
Nansen,  and  Peary,  and  Wellman,  and  Borchgrevink 
forced  still  farther  north  and  south  into  the  ice  and  cold 
of  the  arctic  and  the  antarctic  ;  while  the  novel  plan  of 
Andree,  the  Frenchman,  to  wrest  the  secret  of  the  pole 
by  balloon  expedition,  in  1898,  ended  in  still  greater  mys- 
tery, for  the  foolhardy  explorer  was  never  heard  of  again. 

While  the  unbeaten  tracks  of  the  earth  were  being 
trodden  by  inquisitive  feet,  inquisitive  and  trained  eyes  were 
searching  the  heavens  with  such  mighty  "  finders  "  as  the 
Yerkes  and  Lick  telescopes,  while  deep-sea  soundings  and 
investigations  added  to  the  knowledge  of  hidden  things ;  so 
that,  indeed,  "the  heavens  above,  the  earth  beneath,  and 
the  waters  under  the  earth  "  grew  more  and  more  but  as 
open  books  to  be  read  and  translated  by  man. 

The  gold  of  the  Klondike,  unearthed  in  cold  Alaska, 
where  a  section  five  hundred  miles  long  by  one  hundred 
wide  was  found,  in  1898,  to  be  teeming  with  the  yellow 
metal,  sent  thousands  of  skilled  and  unskilled  adventurers 
to  suffer,  and  succeed  or  fail,  in  the  new  "  diggings," —  one 
of  the  largest  and  richest  mining  areas  in  the  world,  but 
one  of  the  severest  and  most  remote. 

But  what  will  man  not  dare  for  gain  and  gold  ?  It  is 
the  spirit  that  has  set  mankind  in  motion  since  Aryan 
migration  first  peopled  Europe,  and  the  eagles  of  Rome 


IJ?,      THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

reconquered  the  golden  East.  It  is  the  basis  of  exploration, 
occupation,  colonization,  and  development,  making  citizens 
of  the  homeless,  and  patriots  of  the  wanderers,  from  the 
days  of  the  Golden  Fleece  and  the  fables  of  Cathay,  to  the 
development  of  California,  Australia,  the  Transvaal,  and 
the  even  more  unfamiliar  "waste  places  of  the  world."  It 
is  responsible  for  the  "scramble  for  Africa,"  the  expansion 
of  the  nations,  and  the  new  boundaries  of  the  earth. 

A  famous  French  statesman  and  financier  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  said,  long  before  the  American  Declaration 
of  Independence,  "Colonies  are  like  fruits  that  cling  to 
trees  only  till  they  ripen.  As  soon  as  America  can  take 
care  of  herself,  she  will  do  what  Carthage  did." 

Even  before  America  was  quite  ready  to  take  care  of  her- 
self she  made  the  foward  stride  to  independence.  But,  doing 
as  Carthage  did,  she  also  set  a  new  lesson  for  England  and 
other  colonizing  nations  of  Europe  to  read  ;  and  they  read 
it  —  all  save  Spain.  For,  save  by  Spain,  the  monumental 
folly  of  England  in  1776  has  not  since  been  attempted. 

As  a  result,  the  spheres  of  influence  marked  out  by  the 
civilized  nations  of  to-day  have  well-nigh  appropriated  the 
world.  The  colonies  and  dependencies  of  European 
powers  are  in  every  zone.  Denmark  has  firm  footing  in 
Greenland,  and  Iceland,  and  the  West  Indies  ;  France  is 
dispersed  through  Asia,  Africa,  America,  and  Polynesia, 
over  a  total  colonial  area  of  two  and  one-half  million  square 
miles  ;  Germany  governs  a  million  square  miles  of  territory, 
with  over  ten  millions  of  colonial  subjects,  in  Africa,  Asia, 
and  the  Pacific  ;  little  Holland,  or  the  Kingdom  of  the  Neth- 
erlands, as  it  prefers  to  call  itself,  has  colonial  possessions 
in  the  East  and  West  Indies,  covering  sixty  times  as  much 


HOW   THE   CENTURY   CLOSED. 


379 


area,  with  seven  times  as  great  a  population,  as  the  Lillipu- 
tian mother  country  ;  Italy,  a  new-comer  among  colonizing 
nations,  has  dependencies  along  the  Red  Sea  and  the  Somali 
coast  ;  Portugal,  like  Holland,  small  in  home  dominions, 
has  colonial  possessions  in  Africa  and  Asia  embracing  eight 
hundred  thousand  square  miles,  and  more  than  nine  million 
inhabitants  ;  Russia,  that  mighty  autocracy,  which  claims 
possession  of  one-seventh  of  the  land  surface  of  the  globe, 
and  knows  itself  only  as  "all  the  Russias  "  —  Russia  in 
Europe,  Russia  in  Asia,  Finland,  and  Poland  —  counts 
nothing  it  absorbs  as  a  colony,  but  as  Russia,  and  holds  its 
dependencies  in  Asia,  Bokhara,  Khiva,  and  Port  Arthur  as 
vassal  rather  than  colonial  possessions  ;  Spain,  once  the 
greatest  of  colonizing  nations,  found,  in  1900,  its  foreign 
dependencies  shrunken  into  narrow  limits  in  Africa  and 
the  Pacific,  two  hundred  and  forty  thousand  square  miles, 
and  less  than  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand  inhab- 
itants, against  four  hundred  thousand  with  eleven  million 
inhabitants  in  1898;  while  Turkey,  still  holding  a  weak 
clutch  on  Egypt  and  Tripoli,  just  came  within  the  limit  of 
colonial  ownership  ;  the  United  States,  successors  equally 
by  the  might  of  right  and  the  right  of  might  to  the  colonial 
possessions  of  Spain,  found  itself,  in  1900,  not  by  inten- 
tion but  by  circumstances,  master  of  colonial  possessions 
and  protector  of  possible  republics  among  the  Atlantic  and 
Pacific  islands,  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  Hawaii,  the  Philip- 
pines, Samoa  and  Guam,  two  hundred  thousand  square 
miles  of  territory,  and  twelve  and  a  half  millions  of  people  ; 
while,  greater  than  all  other  nations  combined  in  extent  of 
area,  diversity  of  location,  and  number  of  inhabitants,  the 
British  Empire  stands  out  as  the  giant  of  modern  coloniza- 


380      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

tion  and  civilization  ;  in  Europe  and  Asia,  in  Africa  and 
Australia,  in  America  and  the  Isles  of  the  Sea,  Great 
Britain  holds  vast  dependencies,  and  "  the  meteor  flag  of 
England  "  floats  in  possession  in  every  zone  that  girdles 
the  globe,  and  in  every  wind  that  blows.  "  What  is  the 
Flag  of  England }  "  asked  the  foremost  of  living  English 
writers,  "Winds  of  the  world  declare!"  and  the  four 
winds  each  make  answer—  North,  South,  East,  and  West : 

"The  lean  white  bear  hath  seen  it  in  the  long,  long  Arctic  night, 
The  musk-ox  knows  the  standard  that  flouts  the  Northern  Light : 
What  is  the  Flag  of  England.'     Ye  have  but  my  bergs  to  dare, 
Ye  have  but  my  drifts  to  conquer.     Go  forth,  for  it  is  there  1 

My  basking  sun-fish  knows  it,  and  wheeling  albatross, 
Where  the  lone  wave  lights  with  fire  beneath  the  Southern  Cross. 
What  is  the  Flag  of  England?     Ye  have  but  my  reefs  to  dare, 
Ye  have  but  my  seas  to  furrow.     Go  forth,  for  it  is  there  I 

The  desert-dust  hath  dimmed  it,  the  flying  wild  ass  knows. 
The  scared  white  leopard  winds  it  across  the  taintless  snows. 
What  is  the  Flag  of  England  ?     Ye  have  but  my  sun  to  dare, 
Ye  have  but  my  sands  to  travel.     Go  forth,  for  it  is  there  I 

The  dead,  dumb  fog  hath  wrapped  it  —  the  frozen  dews  have  kissed — 
The  naked  stars  have  seen  it,  a  fellow-star  in  the  mist. 
What  is  the  Flag  of  England  ?     Ye  have  but  my  breath  to  dare. 
Ye  have  but  my  waves  to  conquer.     Go  forth,  for  it  is  there  1 " 

So  the  English-speaking  race  from  the  days  of  Drake 
have  gone  forth  to  conquer  drifts  and  seas,  and  sands  and 
waves ;  and,  to-day,  more  than  one-quarter  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  civilized  world  resides  under  the  protection  of 
the  Flag  of  England  ;  and  that  little  island  kingdom,  with 
its  area  of  but  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  square 
miles  and  less  than  forty  million  inhabitants,  dominates  a 


HOW   THE   CENTURY   CLOSED.  381 

world  empire  that  includes  twelve  millions  of  area  and  four 
hundred  millions  of  people. 

And  what  of  the  Speech  of  England  —  the  conqueror  of 
the  world.  In  the  eleventh  century  after  Christ  scarcely 
two  million  people  were  English-speaking  ;  at  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century  twenty-one  million  people  called 
the  English  tongue  their  own  ;  at  the  opening  of  the  twen- 
tieth century  the  English  language  is  the  native  tongue  of 
one  hundred  and  sixty  milUons.  Of  the  other  dominating 
languages  of  the  world,  eighty  millions  speak  Russian, 
eighty  millions  speak  German,  fifty-eight  millions  French, 
forty-four  millions  Spanish,  and  thirty-four  millions  Italian  ; 
to-day,  as  a  recent  investigator  declares,  "  the  English  lan- 
guage is  in  the  ascendant,  and  ere  long  may  be,  if  not  the 
universal  language,  at  least  the  tongue  spoken  by  more 
persons  than  any  other  two  languages. 

In  this  world  absorption  of  speech  and  power,  the  re- 
public of  the  United  States  claims  lot  and  part.  The  first 
of  England's  foreign  possessions,  the  first  also  to  break 
away  and  set  England  a  new  lesson  in  colonial  rights  and 
government,  the  stars  and  stripes  of  the  American  republic 
float  in  possession  or  protection  over  nearly  four  million 
miles  of  area  and  ninety  millions  of  people. 

"These  colonists,"  said  Mr.  Seeley,  in  his  "Expansion  of 
England,"  "which,  when  they  parted  from  us  did  but  fringe 
the  Atlantic  sea-board,  and  had  but  lately  begun  to  push 
their  settlements  into  the  Valley  of  the  Ohio,  how  steadily, 
how  boundlessly,  and  with  what  self-reliance,  have  they 
advanced  since !  They  have  covered  with  their  States  and 
Territories  first  the  Mississippi  \''alley,  next  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and,  lastly,  the  Pacific  Coast.     They  have  made 


382      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

no  difficulty  of  absorbing  all  the  territory ;  it  has  not 
shaken  their  political  system.  And  they  have  never  said, 
as,  among  us,  even  those  who  are  not  pessimists  say  of  our 
colonies,  that  if  they  wish  to  secede,  of  course  they  can  do 
so.  On  the  contrary,  they  have  firmly  denied  this  right, 
and  to  maintain  the  unity  of  their  vast  state  have  sacri- 
ficed blood  and  treasure  in  unexampled  profusion.  They 
firmly  refused  to  allow  their  union  to  be  broken  up,  or  to 
listen  to  the  argument  that  a  state  is  none  the  better  for 
being  very  large." 

So  the  Nineteenth  Century  closes  in  Anglo-Saxon  union 
and  supremacy.  What  Napoleon  as  a  world  conqueror 
strove  to  dominate  at  the  opening  of  the  century,  the 
sovereign  people,  led  to  democracy  by  the  example  of 
America  and  the  steady  onward  course  of  England,  have 
achieved  at  the  end. 

Since  18 14,  when  Napoleon  fell,  every  state  in  Europe 
and  many  outside  that  world-possessing  continent,  have 
changed  their  political  or  social  organization.  "  The  nine- 
teenth century,"  says  Professor  Seignobos,  "has  been  a 
time  of  internal  revolution." 

It  has  been  more  than  that  :  it  has  been  a  century  of 
emancipation  —  emancipation  of  thought,  of  speech,  of 
ideas,  of  manners,  of  methods,  and  of  men.  Personal  gov- 
ernment has  given  place  to  democratic  government,  the 
sovereignty  of  the  prince  has  become  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people,  "  and  the  word  '  control '  has  come  to  mean 
•rule.'" 

"The  fact  of  our  time  which  overshadows  all  others," 
says  Benjamin  Kidd,  "is  the  arrival  of  Democracy.  .  . 
It    is   a   new    Democracy.  .   .  To    compare    it    with    de- 


HOW   THE   CENTURY   CLOSED.  383 

mocracies  which  held  power  under  the  ancient  empires  is  to 
altogether  misundertand  both  the  nature  of  our  civiliza- 
tion and  the  character  of  the  forces  that  have  produced  it. 
The  arrival  of  this  new  Democracy  is  the  crowning  result 
of  an  ethical  movement  in  which  qualities  and  attributes 
we  have  all  been  taught  to  regard  as  the  very  highest  of 
which  human  nature  is  capable,  find  the  completest  ex- 
pression they  have  ever  reached  in  the  history  of  the  race." 
In  1800  men  rode  in  stage  coaches,  and  in  1900  in  auto- 
mobiles ;  they  carried  flint  and  steel,  where  to-day  they 
use  the  electric  light ;  they  groaned  beneath  the  surgeon's 
uncertain  knife,  took  months  to  cross  the  ocean,  had 
scarcely  one  newspaper  a  week,  and  lived  in  their  own 
isolated,  limited,  small,  and  selfish  fashion,  save  where  a  few 
aristocrats  kept  "  open  house  ;  "  drunkenness  was  the  fash- 
ion, duelling  the  only  code  of  honor,  and  bigotry  the  rule. 
The  laws  of  humanity  were  few,  and  kindness  to  the  unfor- 
tunate, the  unprotected,  and  to  animals  almost  an  uncertain 
quality  ;  slavery  or  serfdom  was  the  normal  condition  of 
the  majority  of  the  world's  people,  and  the  crimes  of 
to-day  were  scarcely  even  the  vices  of  our  grandsires  : 
education  was  for  the  few,  power  was  the  prerogative  of  a 
handful  of  aristocrats,  and  the  "  submerged  tenth  "  of  1900 
was  the  submerged  nine-tenths  of  1800.  Men  took  but 
few  pleasures,  and  took  them  seriously  ;  the  days  of  the 
tallow-dip  were  the  days  of  secrecy,  superstition,  and  igno- 
rance. Sport  was  for  the  most  part  cruelty,  and  athletics 
were  brutally  undeveloped ;  weakness  was  the  fag  of 
strength,  and  what  we  know  as  the  "amenities  of  life" 
were  as  rare  as  courtesy  and  as  little  understood  as  the 
"mysteries"  of  science. 


384      THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

Look  out  over  the  bright,  brilliant,  progressive,  and 
prosperous  world  that  greets  the  twentieth  century,  and 
exclaim  in  the  words  of  the  psalmist  and  the  first  telegram : 
"What  hath  God  wrought  !  " 

This  is  a  grand  progress  to  have  been  a  part  of  ;  it 
is  a  e:rand  achievement  to  have  lived  to  see.  Failures  and 
drawbacks  the  Nineteenth  Century  had  in  plenty ;  but  its 
successes  far  exceeded  its  failures ;  absolute  and  steady 
progress  was  its  record ;  its  story,  one  of  triumphant 
advance.  In  literature,  science,  and  art  ;  in  invention, 
improvement,  and  possession ;  in  liberty,  humanity,  civil- 
ization, and  law  the  Nineteenth  Century  stands,  "  the  heir 
of  all  the  ages  in  the  foremost  files  of  time ;  "  and  in  unity, 
in  neighborliness,  in  brotherhood,  and  all  the  gentler  and 
more  refining,  no  less  than  in  the  strenuous  and  deter- 
mined ways  of  men  this  wonderful  century,  in  spite  of 
bickerings  and  jealousies,  in  spite  of  greed  and  arrogance, 
in  spite  of  hates  and  feuds,  in  spite  of  selfishness  and  sus- 
picion, steps  grandly  in  the  advance  as  the  flower  and 
pride  of  all  the  centuries  since  Christ  came  to  Bethlehem, 
and  taught  men  that  Golden  Rule  which,  after  nine- 
teen hundred  years  of  slow  and  sullen  schooling,  is  to 
become  the  motive  and  creator  of  the  great  things  which 
the  new  century  holds  in  store  for  man.  /T^ 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 
TOLD   CHRONOLOGICALLY. 


1799.  Death  of  Washington,  December  14 ;  Napoleon  First  Consul  of 
France,  December  24  ;  Mowing-machine  patented  in  England. 

1800.  Pius  VII.  pope  of  Rome,  March  14 ;  Napoleon  crosses  the  Alps, 
May  17;  Battle  of  Marengo,  June  14. 

1801.  Union  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  January  i  ;  Peace  of  Luneville, 
February  5 ;  Alexander  I.  czar  of  Russia,  March  24 ;  French  evacuate 
Egypt,  September  2 ;  Jefferson  president  of  United  States,  March  4. 

1802.  Peace  of  Amiens,  March  27  ;  Napoleon  consul  for  life,  August  3. 

1803.  Cape  of  Good  Hope  restored  to  Dutch,  February  21  ;  Louisiana 
sold  to  the  United  States,  April  30;  England  and  France  at  war.  May 
18  ;  Battle  of  Assaye,  September  23. 

1804.  Napoleon  emperor  of  the  French,  May  18  ;  Saving  banks  established. 

1805.  Napoleon  king  of  Italy,  May  26 ;  Third  coalition  against  France ; 
Battle  of  Ulm,  October  17  ;  Victory  of  Trafalgar  and  death  of  Nelson, 
October  21  ;  Battle  of  Austerlitz,  December  2  ;  Peace  of  Pressburg, 
December  26.     Lewis  and  Clarke's  overland  e.xpedition  to  the  Pacific. 

1806.  Cape  of  Good  Hope  taken  by  English,  January  8  ;  Confederation 
of  the  Rhine,  July  12  ;  Holy  Roman  Empire  dissolved,  August  6;  Death 
of  Fox,  September  18;  Battle  of  Jena,  October  14;  BerUn  decrees, 
November  21. 

1807.  England  abolishes  slave-trade,  March  25  ;  Battle  of  Friedland, 
June  14  ;  Peace  of  Tilsit,  July  7  ;  Fulton's  steamboat  makes  first  trip 
from  New  York  to  Albany,  August  7  ;  French  invade  Portugal,  Novem- 
ber •  Orders  in  Council,  November ;  Embargo  Act,  December. 

1808.  Wellesley  lands  in  Spain,  August  1  ;  Siege  of  Saragossa  raised, 
August  4;  Abolition  of  Spanish  Inquisition,  December  4. 

X809.  Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore.  January  16;  Madison  president  of  United 
States,  March  4 ;  Ilofer's  revolt  in  Tyrol,  April  8  ;  Napoleon  excommu- 
nicated by  the  pope,  June  10;  Arrest  of  the  pope,  July  5;   Battle  of 

3S5 


386      THE   STORY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY 

"Wagram,  July  6;  Peace  of  Vienna,  October  14;  Divorce  of  Empress 
Josephine,  December  15. 

1810.  Napoleon  marries  Maria  Louisa  of  Austria,  April  i  ;  Wellington  at 
Torres  Vedras,  October  10 ;  Insanity  of  George  III.,  November. 

181 1.  Massacre  of  the  Mamelukes,  March  i  ;  English  conquer  Java, 
August  26. 

i8ia.  Wellington  storms  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  January  19;  United  States 
declares  war  against  Great  Britain,  June  18;  Napoleon  declares  war 
against  Russia,  June  22  ;  Battle  of  Borodino,  September  7 ;  Burning  of 
Moscow,  September  16;  Retreat  from  Moscow,  October  and  November. 

1813.  War  of  Liberation ;  Battle  of  Liitzen,  May  2 ;  Perry's  victory  on 
Lake  Erie,  September  10 ;  Wellington  invades  France,  October  7 ; 
Battle  of  Leipsic,  October  18;  Street -lighting  by  gas,  London. 

1 814.  Allies  invade  France,  January;  Bolivar  president  of  Venezuela, 
January  i  ;  Capitulation  of  Paris,  March  31  ;  Abdication  of  Napoleon, 
April  1 1  ;  Napoleon  exiled  to  Elba,  May  4  ;  Americans  invade  Canada, 
July;  British  capture  and  bum  Washington,  August  24;  Congress  of 
Vienna,  November  3  ;  Treaty  of  peace  between  United  States  and  Great 
Britain,  December  24 ;  London  Times  uses  steam  printing-press ; 
Stephenson  perfects  the  locomotive. 

1815.  Jackson's  victory  at  New  Orleans,  January  8  ;  Napoleon  escapes 
from  Elba,  February  26 ;  Napoleon  in  Paris,  March  20 ;  Treaty  of 
Vienna  (Europe  against  Napoleon),  March  25  ;  Battle  of  Waterloo,  June 
18;  Second  abdication  of  Napoleon,  June  22 ;  Napoleon  arrives  at  St. 
Helena,  October  16;  Formation  of  Holy  Alliance,  September  26;  Sec- 
ond Peace  of  Paris,  November  20. 

1816.  Cheap  newspapers  for  the  people  started  by  Cobbett. 

1817.  Monroe  president  of  United  States,  March  4 ;  Discoveries  in 
spectnmi  analysis. 

1818.  Bemadotte  king  of  Sweden,  February  6;  Allies  evacuate  France, 
November  30  ;  Steam  navigation  on  the  Great  Lakes. 

1819.  Florida  ceded  to  United  States  by  Spain,  February  22;  "  Reform- 
ers" massacred  at  Manchester,  August  16;  First  steamship  crosses 
Atlantic. 

1820.  George  IV.  king  of  England.  January  22  ;  Jesuits  expelled  from 
Russia,  March  25  ;  Carbonari  revolt  in  Naples,  July  2. 

1821.  Revolution  in  Brazil,  January;  Insurrection  in  Greece,  March  6; 
Independence  of  Brazil  proclaimed,  April  22  ;  Death  of  Napoleon  at  St. 
Helena,  May  5  ;  Republic  of  Liberia  founded  ;  Florida  ceded  to  United 
States. 


TOLD   CHRONOLOGICALLY.  387 

1822.  Greeks  declare  their  independence,  January  i  ;  Iturbide  emperor  of 
Mexico,  May  22  ;  Dom  Pedro  emperor  of  Brazil,  October  12. 

1823.  Death  of  Pius  VIL,  August  20 ;  Leo  XH.  elected  pope,  September 
28 ;  Great  Britain  recognizes  South  American  republics,  October  30 ; 
British  Anti-Slavery  Society  founded  ;  Mormonism  founded. 

1824.  Bolivar  dictator  of  Peru,  February  10;  Death  of  Lord  Byron  at 
Missolonghi,  April  18. 

1825.  John  Quincy  Adams  president  of  United  States,  March  4 ;  Dutch 
East  India  ports  opened  to  all  nations,  July  27  ;  Independence  of  Brazil 
recognized,  September  7 ;  Nicholas  I.  czar  of  Russia,  December  i  ; 
First  steam  voyage  to  India  ;  First  railway  in  England,  September  27. 

1826.  Spaniards  evacuate  Peru,  January ;  Massacre  of  Janissaries  at 
Constantinople,  June  15 ;  Death  of  John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson, 
July  4  ;  Brazil  abolishes  slave-trade,  November  23  ;  First  railroad  in 
United  States. 

1827.  Death  of  Pestalozzi,  February  17  ;  Erection  of  the  kingdom  of 
Greece,  July  6;  Death  of  Canning,  August  8;  Charles  X.  of  France 
dissolves  Chamber  of  Deputies,  November  5 ;  Battle  of  Navarino, 
October  27  ;  Friction  matches  invented. 

1828.  Wellington  administration  in  England,  January  25  ;  Russia  declares 
war  against  Turkey  April  26 ;  Corn- Law  in  England ;  Test  Act  repealed. 

1829.  Death  of  Leo  XII.,  February  10;  Andrew  Jackson  president  of 
United  States,  March  4;  Peace  of  Adrianople,  September  14 ;  Suttee 
in  India  suppressed,  December  14;  Stephenson  builds  the  "  Rocket  " 
locomotive. 

1830.  Independence  of  Greece  recognized  by  the  Powers  of  Europe,  Feb- 
ruary 3 ;  William  IV.  king  of  England,  June  26 ;  French  conquer  Al- 
giers. July  5 ;  Revolution  in  France,  July  27  ;  Flight  of  Charles  X.,  July 
30;  Abdication  of  Charles  X.,  August  2  ;  Louis  Philippe,  king  of 
France,  August  9 ;  Insurrections  and  revolutions  in  Europe ;  Liverpool 
and  Manchester  Railway  opened,  September  15;  Independence  of  Bel- 
gium, November  18  ;  Death  of  Pius  VII.,  November  30;  Death  of  Boli- 
var, December  17. 

1831.  Gregory  XVI.  elected  pope  February  2  ;  Hereditary  peerage  abol- 
ished in  France,  December  29  ;  McCormick  invents  reaping-machine. 

1832.  Poland  absorbed  by  Russia.  February  26 ;  Death  of  Goethe.  March 
22;  Death  of  Cuvier,  May  13:  Reform  Bill  passed,  June  7;  Otho  king 
of  Greece,  August  30;  Death  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  September  21  ;  Nulli- 
fication in  South  Carolina. 

1833.  First    Reform    Parliament  of  United  Kingdom,  January  29 ;  Santa 


388     THE    STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY 

Anna  president  of  Mexico,  April  i8;    Abolition  of  slavery  in  British 
colonies,  August  28  ;  Isabella  II.  queen  of  Spain,  September  29. 

1834.  Death  of  Lafayette,  May  20 ;  Poor  Law  Act  (England)  passed, 
August  14. 

1835.  Ferdinand  I.  emperor  of  Austria,  March  2  ;  Texas  revolts  against 
Mexico,  July;  Death  of  Cobbett,  June  18;  Independence  of  Texas, 
December  22. 

1836.  Thiers  prime  minister  of  France,  February  22 ;  Louis  Napoleon  at 
Strasburg,  October  29. 

1837.  Martin  Van  Buren  president  of  United  States,  March  4  ;  Victoria 
queen  of  England,  June  20;  Pillory  abolished  in  England;  Father  Ma- 
thew  begins  his  temperance  reform. 

1838.  Death  of  Talleyrand,  May  17  ;  Independence  of  Peru,  July  29;  Re- 
bellion in  Canada  ends,  November  17;  Chartist  meetings  suppressed, 
December  12;  International  Copyright  Act. 

1839.  Daguerreotypes  invented,  January  9  ;  Chartist  riots  at  Birmingham, 
July  15;  Christian  VIII.  king  of  Denmark,  December  3;  Pope  pro- 
hibits slave-trade,  December  3  ;  English  settle  New  Zealand ;  Discovery 
of  gold  in  Australia. 

1840.  Penny-postage  in  England,  January  10 ;  Frederick  William  VI. 
king  of  Prussia,  June  7  ;  Louis  Napoleon  arrested  at  Boulogne,  August 
6 ;  William  II.  king  of  Holland,  October  7  ;  Remains  of  Emperor  Na- 
poleon brought  to  France,  November  30 ;  Second  funeral  of  Napoleon, 
December  15;  First  crank  bicycle  made. 

1841.  Union  of  Upper  and  Lower  Canada,  February  10;  William  Henry 
Harrison  president  of  United  States,  March  4  ;  "Tracts  for  the  Times" 
condemned  in  England,  March  15  ;  Death  of  President  Harrison;  John 
Tyler  president  of  United  States,  April  4  ;  Prince  of  Wales  bom,  No- 
vember 9. 

1842.  Corn-law  passed,  April  29 ;  Great  Chartist  petition.  May  2 ;  Con- 
quest of  Boers  of  Natal,  June  26;  Ashburton  Treaty  between  United 
States  and  Great  Britain,  August  9;  Death  of  Channing,  October  2. 

X843.  Natal  annexed  to  Cape  Colony,  May ;  Arrest  of  O'Connell,  Octo- 
ber 14. 

1844.  Death  of  Thorwaldsen,  March  24;  Morse's  first  telegram,  May  27  ; 
Brigham  Young  head  of  Mormon  church,  June  27. 

1845.  Death  of  Sydney  Smith,  February  22  ;  James  Knox  Polk  president 
of  United  States.  March  4;  Sir  John  Franklin  lost  in  the  Arctic;  Mexico 
declares  war  against  United  States,   June  4. 

1846.  Escape  of  Louis   Napoleon  from  France,  May  26;  Death  of  Greg- 


TOLD    CHRONOLOGICALLY.  389 

ory  XVL,  June  i  ;  Treaty  of  Washington  for  Oregon  boundary,  June  15  ; 
Pius  IX.  elected  pope,  June  16;  Repeal  of  English  corn-law,  June  26; 
New  Mexico  annexed  to  United  States,  August  23 ;  "The  Spanish  Mar- 
riage," September;  Morton  administered  ether,  October  i6. 

1847.  Death  of  Sir  John  Franklin,  June  1 1  ;  Capture  of  city  of  Mexico, 
September  15  ;  Death  of  Mendelssohn,  November  4  ;  Surrender  of  Abd- 
el-Kader,  December  22  ;  Mormons  found  Salt  Lake  City. 

1848.  Year  of  revolutions  ;  Gold  discovered  in  California,  January  ;  Fred- 
erick VII.  king  of  Denmark,  January  20;  Death  of  John  Quincy  Ad- 
ams, February  2 1  ;  Revolution  in  P'rance,  February  23  ;  Abdication  of 
Louis  Philippe,  February  24 ;  French  republic  proclaimed,  February 
26  ;  Abolition  of  slavery  in  French  dominions,  April  27  ;  Treaty  between 
Mexico  and  United  States,  May  19;  Death  of  George  Stephenson,  Aug- 
ust 12;  Louis  Napoleon  elected  deputy,  September  20  ;  elected  presi- 
dent of  French  republic,  December  20 ;  Simpson  introduces  chloroform. 

1849.  Rush  for  gold  to  California;  Zachary  Taylor,  president  of  United 
States,  March  4 ;  Victor  Emmanuel,  king  of  Sardinia,  March  24 ;  Inde- 
pendence of  Hungary  proclaimed ;  Kossuth  appointed  governor,  April 
14;  Defeat  of  Hungarians  resignation  of  Kossuth,  August  11. 

1850.  Death  of  Calhoun,  March  31  ;  North  German  parliament  at  Erfurt, 
March  20 ;  Death  of  Wordsworth,  April  24  ;  Death  of  Peel,  July  2  ; 
Death  of  President  Taylor;  Millard  Filmore  president  of  United 
States,  July  9;  Death  of  Balzac,  August  18;  First  Building  and  Loan 
Association  formed. 

1851.  International  Exhibition  opened  at  London,  May  i  ;  Death  of 
Cooper,  September  14  ;  Cotip  d'dtat  at  Paris,  December  2  ;  Louis  Napo- 
leon president  for  ten  years,  December  20. 

1852.  Death  of  Thomas  Moore,  February  26 ;  Death  of  Henry  Clay,  June 
29;  Death  of  Wellington,  September  14;  Death  of  Daniel  Webster, 
October  24;  Louis  Napoleon  emperor  of  France,  December  2;  "Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  "  published. 

1853.  Franklin  Pierce  president  of  United  States,  March  4 ;  Taiping 
rebellion  in  China;  capture  of  Shanghai,  Sepember  7. 

1854.  France  declares  war  against  Russia,  March  27 ;  England  declares 
war  against  Russia,  March  28 ;  Battle  of  Alma,  September  20 ;  Battle 
of  Balaklava,  October  25. 

1855.  Sardinia  declares  war  against  Russia,  January  26;  I^ord  Palmerston, 
prime-minister  of  England,  February  6 ;  Death  of  Charlotte  Bronte, 
March  31;  Storming  of  the  Malakoff,  September  S;  Alexander  II. 
czar  of  Russia,  March  2  ;  Sebastopol  captured,  September  9. 


390      THE    STORY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH   CENTURY 

1856.  Death  of  Heine,  February  17;  Treaty  of  Paris,  March  30;  Evacu- 
ation of  Crimea,  July  12. 

1857.  Dred  Scott  decision,  March  6 ;  Sepoy  mutiny  in  India,  January, 
May;  James  Buchanan  president  of  United  States,  March  4;  Massacre 
at  Cawnpore,  July  15  ;  Death  of  Beranger,  July  16  ;  First  Atlantic  Cable 
laid,  and  fails,  August ;  Death  of  Comte,  September  5  ;  Relief  of  Luck- 
now,  September  25  ;  English  and  French  capture  Canton,  December  29 ; 
Kansas-Nebraska  war,  December. 

1858.  "Great  Eastern"  launched,  January  31  ;  First  message  over  new 
Atlantic  cable,  August  20 ;  Commercial  treaty  between  Great  Britain 
and  Japan,  August  26 ;  England  assumes  sovereignty  of  India,  Septem- 
ber I  ;  Death  of  Robert  Owen,  November  17. 

1859.  Italy  declares  war  against  Austria,  April  27 ;  Death  of  Humboldt, 
May  6 ;  Battle  of  Magenta,  June  4 ;  Louis  Napoleon  and  Victor  Em- 
manuel enter  Milan,  June  8  ;  Death  of  Metternich,  June  1 1  ;  Battle  of 
Solferino,  June  24 ;  Treaty  of  Villa  franca,  July  7 ;  Death  of  Washing- 
ton Irving,  November  28 ;  John  Brown  hanged  for  insurrection  in  Vir- 
ginia, December  2  ;  Death  of  Macaulay,  December  28. 

i860.  Cavour  prime-minister  of  new  kingdom  of  Italy,  January  21  ;  Gar- 
ibaldi enters  Palermo,  May  27  ;  Garibaldi  proclaims  Victor  Emmanuel 
at  Naples,  May  27;  Prince  of  Wales  visits  America;  Secession  of 
South  Carolina,  December  20 ;  Japanese  embassy  in  America. 

1861.  William  I.  king  of  Prussia,  January  2 ;  Southern  States  secede 
from  the  Union,  January,  February ;  Jefferson  Davis  president  of 
Southern  Confederacy,  February  4 ;  First  Italian  Parliament  at  Turin, 
February  18;  Alexander  czar  of  Russia,  emancipates  the  serfs,  March 
3 ;  Abraham  Lincoln  president  of  the  United  States,  March  4 ;  Victor 
Emmanuel  king  of  Italy,  March  17;  Bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter, 
April  12;  Great  Britain  and  France  recognize  Confederate  States  as 
belligerents,  June  15;  Death  of  Cavour,  June  6;  Death  of  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing, June  29;  Battle  of  Bull  Run,  July  21  ;  Seizure  of  British  steamer 
"  Trent,"  November  8 ;  Confederate  commissioners  given  up  to  Eng- 
land, December  28 ;  Death  of  Prince  Albert,  prince  consort  of  Eng- 
land, December  14. 

1862.  Japanese  embassy  in  Europe ;  fight  between  "  Monitor  "  and  "  Mer- 
rimac,"  March  4  ;  Defeat  of  Garibaldi,  August  29 ;  France  declares  war 
on  Mexico  April  16. 

1863.  Lincoln's  Emancipation  Proclamation,  January  i ;  Death  of  Stone- 
wall Jackson,  May  2  ;  Battle  of  Gettysburg,  July  3  ;  Surrender  of  Vicks- 
burg,   July  4 ;    Maximilian,    Emperor  of   Mexico,   July    10 ;    Battle  of 


TOLD   CHRONOLOGICALLY.  39 1 

Chickamauga,  September  19;  Battle  of  Chattanooga,  November  24; 
Death  of  Thackeray,  December  24. 
X864.  Austro-Pnissian  army  invades  Holstein,  January  21  ;  Russia  con- 
quers Circassia ;  Death  of  Meyerbeer,  May  2 ;  "  Alabama "  sunk  by 
"  Kearsage "  off  Cherbourg,  June  19;  Repeal  of  Fugitive  Slave  Law, 
June  23 ;  Treaty  of  Vienna,  end  of  Schleswig-Holstein  war,  October 
30 ;  Sherman's  march  to  the  sea ;  Geneva  convention  for  rehef  of 
wounded  in  war. 

1865.  First  direct  telegram  from  India  to  London,  March  i  ;  Death  of 
Cobden,  April  2 ;  Surrender  of  Lee,  April  9 ;  Assassination  of  Lincoln, 
April  14;  Andrew  Johnson,  president  of  the  United  States,  April  15; 
Paraguay  declares  war  on  Argentine  Confederation,  April  16;  Capture 
of  Jefferson  Davis,  May  10;  Florence  capital  of  Italy,  May  11  ;  Salva- 
tion Army  created,  July  5;  Death  of  Palmerston,  October  18;  Leopold 
II.  king  of  the  Belgians,  December  10;  Slavery  abolished  in  United 
States,  December  iS;  Death  of  Fredrica  Rremer,  December  31. 

1866.  Civil  Rights  bill  in  United  States,  April  12;  Fenian  raids  into 
Canada,  June  8  ;  Prussia  withdraws  from  German  confederation,  June 
14  ;  War  between  Prussia  and  Austria,  June  ;  Battle  of  Sadowa,  July  3  ; 
Treaty  of  Prague,  August  23  ;  Venice  united  to  Italy,  November  4 ; 
Rome  evacuated  by  French,  December  11. 

1867.  Death  of  Cousin,  January  14 ;  Schleswig-Holstein  absorbed  by 
Prussia,  January  24 ;  Hungary's  constitution  restored,  February  7  ; 
First  ship  in  Suez  Canal,  Februaiy  17  ;  Alaska  purchased  by  United 
States,  March  13;  French  evacuate  Mexico,  March  16;  Dominion  of 
Canada  constituted,  March  29;  E.xecution  of  Ma.ximilian,  June  19; 
Battle  of  Mentana ;  Defeat  of  Garibaldi,  November  3  ;  France  annexes 
Cochin  China ;  Modern  bicycle  invented ;  John  Pratt  patents  modern 
typewriter. 

1868.  Impeachment  of  President  Johnson,  February  25  ;  Napier  captures 
Magdala,  April  13  ;  Death  of  Lord  Brougham,  May  7  ;  Insurrection  in 
Spain,  September  18;  Flight  of  Queen  Isabella,  September  30;  Death 
of  Rossini,  November  13;  Gladstone  prime  minister  of  England, 
December  9  ;  Mutsuh-ito  progressive  mikado  of  Japan. 

1869.  Death  of  Lamartine,  February  28  ;  Ulysses  S.  Grant  president  of 
United  States,  March  4;  Great  Britain  assumes  Hudson  Bay  Territory, 
April  9;  Irish  Church  Disestablishment  Act,  July  26;  Formal  opening 
of  Suez  Canal,  November  17  ;  Pacific  Railway  completed. 

1870.  Death  of  Dickens,  June  9;  Spanish  crown  offered  to  Prince  Leo- 
pold, July  4  ;  Protest  of  France,  July  6;  Vatican  Council  declares  Infal- 


392     THE   STORY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

libility  of  the  Pope,  July  i8,  France  declares  war  against  Prussia, 
July  19;  Irish  Land  Act  passed,  August  i;  Battle  of  Sedan,  Septem- 
ber I ;  French  army  surrenders  ;  Lx>uis  Napoleon  a  prisoner  in  Germany, 
September  2 ;  Republic  proclaimed  in  Paris,  September  4 ;  Italian 
troops  occupy  Rome,  September  20  ;  Rome,  capital  of  Italy,  October  9 ; 
Death  of  Lee,  October  13;  Communist  insurrection  in  Paris,  October 
31  ;  Amadeus,  son  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  king  of  Spain,  November  16; 
Bavaria  united  to  Germany,  November  23  ;  Death  of  Dumas,  pire, 
December  5  ;  German  Empire  declared,  December  10 ;  Mount  Cenis 
tunnel  completed ;  Guido  Verbeck,  educational  power  in  Japan. 
1871.  William  I.  crowned  Emperor  of  Germany  at  Versailles,  January  18 ; 
Capitulation  of  Paris,  January  28  ;  Thiers  "  chief  of  executive,"  February 
17  ;  Germans  evacuate  Paris,  March  18  ;  Commune  proclaimed  at  Paris, 
March  28;  Treaty  of  Versailles,  May  10;  Death  of  Herschel,  May  11  ; 
Communists  bum  Paris,  May  24 ;  Commune  overthrown,  May  28 ; 
Thiers  president  of  France,  August  31  ;  Opening  of  Mt.  Cenis  tunnel, 
September  17;  Emancipation  in  Brazil,  September  27;  Burning  of 
Chicago,  October  8  ;  "  Alabama  "  Arbitration  Commission  at  Geneva, 
December  18;  British  Columbia  joins  Dominion  of  Canada;  Japan 
abolishes  feudalism. 

1872.  Death  of  Mazzini,  March  10  ;  Great  Britain  takes  the  Gold  Coast 
of  Africa,  April  6 ;  Eruption  of  Vesuvius,  April  24  ;  Germany  expels 
Jesuits,  June  19  ;  Death  of  Juarez,  July  18  ;  English  Ballot  Act  passed, 
July  18  ;  First  railroad  in  Japan;  University  extension  in  England. 

1873.  Death  of  Napoleon  III.,  January  9;  Republic  proclaimed  in  Spain, 
February  1 1  ;  Death  of  Livingstone,  May  4  ;  Death  of  John  Stuart  Mill, 
May  8 ;  Macmahon,  president  of  France,  May  24  ;  Home  rule  for  Egypt, 
June  8  ;  Emperor  of  China  receives  foreign  ministers,  June  29 ;  "  Ala- 
bama "  award  paid,  September  6 ;  Germans  evacuate  France,  Septem- 
ber 16;  Death  of  Landseer,  October  i  ;  Death  of  Agassiz,  December  15; 

1874.  Serrano,  dictator  of  Spain,  January  12  ;  Wolseley  captures  Coomas- 
sie,  February  4  ;  Death  of  Strauss,  February  8  ;  Disraeli  prime  minister 
of  England,  February  18;  Death  of  Sumner,  March  11;  Death  of 
Guizot,  September  12;  Alphonso  king  of  Spain,  December  30;  Chau- 
tauqua Educational  System  organized. 

1875.  Prince  of  Wales  visits  India,  October  11  ;  Herzegovina  revolts 
against  Turkey  ;  Republican  constitution  in  France,  February. 

1876.  First  railroad  in  China,  June  30;  Centennial  Exhibition,  Phila- 
delphia, May  10;  Turkish  Constitution  proclaimed,  December  24;  Tele- 
phone patented,  March  7  ;  American  National  Baseball  League  formed. 


TOLD   CHRONOLOGICALLY.  393 

1877.  Russia  invades  Turkey,  June  27  ;  Capture  of  Plevna,  December  10  ; 
Storming  of  Kars,  November  8 ;  Death  of  Thiers,  September  4 ; 
Victoria  empress  of  India,  January  1  ;  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  president 
of  the  United  States,  March  4 ;  Rebellion  in  Japan  suppressed, 
September  24  ;   Electric  lighting  in  Paris  and  London. 

1878.  Peace  of  San  Stefano,  March  3  ;  Congress  of  Berlin,  June  13  ;  Death 
of  Victor  Emmanuel,  January  9;  Humbert  king  of  Italy,  Januai-y  9; 
Death  of  Pius  IX. ;  Leo  XIII.  pope,  February  7  ;  International  Exhibi- 
tion at  Paris;  British  occupy  Cyprus,  July  13;  Franchise  in  Japan; 
Edison  invents  phonograph. 

1879.  Grevy  president  of  France,  January  30 ;  Death  of  Prince  Louis 
Napoleon  in  South  Africa,  June  i  ;  Zulu  War;  Irish  Land  League  advo- 
cated by  Parnell ;  Resumption  of  specie  payment  in  United  States, 
January  i. 

x88o.  Conference  of  Berlin,  June  16;  Gladstone  prime  minister  of  Eng- 
land, April  28  ;  Modern  Athletics  (amateur  and  professional)  become 
established. 

1881.  Young  People's  Society  of  Christian  Endeavor  formed,  February  2. 
Assassination  of  Ale.xander  I.,  czar  of  Russia;  Ale.xander  II.  czar, 
March  13 ;  Electoral  Suffrage  in  Italy,  January  21  ;  Milan  king  of 
Servia,  March  6 ;  Opening  of  St.  Gothard  Railway,  March  22 ;  Death  of 
Garibaldi,  June  2;  Gambetta  minister  of  France,  November  13;  Irish 
Land  Act,  August  22  ;  James  A.  Garfield,  president  of  United  States. 
March  4 ;  Assassination  of  Garfield,  July  2  ;  Chester  A.  Arthur  presi- 
dent of  United  States,  September  19. 

1882.  French  expansion  in  Africa  and  Asia ;  Death  of  Gambetta,  Decem- 
ber 31  ;  Phoenix  Park  assassination  (Dublin),  May  6  ;  Bombardment  of 
Alexandria,  July  11  ;  Battle  of  Tel-el-keber,  September;  Irish  Coercion 
Act.  July  14  ;  Chinese  excluded  from  United  States,  May  6  ;  New  Con- 
stitution for  Japan,  October. 

1883.  Death  of  Peter  Cooper,  April  4  ;  Brooklyn  Bridge  opened.  May  24; 
German  national  monument  unveiled,  September  28  ;  Australian  colonies 
declare  for  union,  December  8. 

X884.  Socialists  banished  from  Vienna,  January  31  ;  Arbitration  board  for 
labor  disputes  established  in  America.  May  23 ;  Electric  exhibition  in 
Philadelphia,  September  2  ;  Porfirio  Diaz  president  of  Mexico,  De- 
cember I. 

1885.  Death  of  "  Chinese "  Gordon  at  Khartoum,  January  27 ;  Grover 
Cleveland  president  of  United  States,  March  4 ;  King  of  the  Belgians 
sovereign  of  the  Congo  State,  April  21  ;  Reunion  of  Union  and  Con- 


394      THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

federate  veterans  at  Gettysburg,  May  4 ;  Surrender  of  Canadian  insur- 
gent leader,  Kiel,  May  14;  Death  of  Victor  Hugo,  May  22;  Death  of 
U.  S.  Grant,  July  23. 

1886.  Great  Britain  annexes  Burmah,  January  i  ;  Gladstone  prime  minis- 
ter of  England,  Febmary  3 ;  Anarchist  riots  in  Chicago,  May  4 ; 
Trouble  between  Greece  and  Turkey,  May;  Ludwig  of  Bavaria  com- 
mits suicide,  June  13;  Cuban  autonomy  refused  by  Spain,  June  30; 
Gladstone  resigns,  July  21  ;  Statue  of  Liberty  in  New  York  harbor 
unveiled,  October  27. 

1887.  Interstate  Commerce  Bill  (U.  S.),  January  21  ;  Queen  Victoria's 
Jubilee,  June  21  ;  Mormons  give  up  polygamy,  July  7  ;  Beginning  of 
new  U.  S.  navy,  August  15;  Sadi-Camot  president  of  France,  Decem- 
ber 3;  Independence  of  Corea,  December  21. 

1888.  Death  of  William  I.,  emperor  of  Germany,  March  9  ;  Frederic  III. 
emperor  of  Germany,  March  9  ;  Railroad  opened  in  Central  Asia,  May 
27;  Death  of  Frederick  III.,  emperor  of  Germany;  William  II.  suc- 
ceeds, June  15;  Death  of  General  Sheridan,  August  12;  Chinese  Ex- 
clusion Bill  signed,  October  i . 

1889.  Troubles  in  Samoa,  January;  Benjamin  Harrison  president  of  the 
United  States,  March  4 ;  Death  of  Ericsson,  March  9 ;  Death  of  John 
Bright,  March  27  ;  American  and  German  war-ships  destroyed  by  hurri- 
cane in  Samoa,  March  15;  Centennial  celebration  of  Washington's 
inauguration  at  New  York,  April  30  ;  International  exhibition  at  Paris, 
May  6;  Exile  of  Boulanger,  August  15;  Pan-American  Congress  at 
Wa.shington,  October  i  ;  Brazil  a  republic,  November  1 5  ;  Charies  I. 
king  of  Portugal,  December  28. 

1890.  Labor  troubles  in  Germany,  February ;  Firth  of  Forth  bridge  opened, 
March  4  ;  Resignation  of  Bismarck,  March  17  ;  Australian  ballot  system 
introduced  into  America,  April  2  ;  Federation  of  Women's  clubs  formed, 
April  23 ;  Austria  refuses  citizenship  to  Kossuth,  May  30 ;  European 
powers  combine  to  suppress  anarchy,  June  3  ;  Revolutions  and  wars  in 
Central  and  South  America.  July;  Statue  of  Daguerre  unveiled  at 
Washington,  August  15;  Financial  panic  in  London,  November  15. 

1891.  Germany  takes  possession  of  African  territory,  January  i  ;  Revo- 
lution in  Chili,  January  7;  Death  of  Bancroft,  January  17;  Death  of 
General  Sherman.  February  14;  Fonseca  president  of  Brazil,  Febraary 
25;  Telephone  between  London  and  Paris,  March  17;  Death  of  von 
Moltke.  April  24;  Death  of  Sir  John  Macdonald.  June  6;  Trial  of 
smokeless  powder,  July  25;  Death  of  Lowell,  August  12;  Death  of 
Pamell,  October  6. 


TOLD    CHRONOLOGICALLY.  395 

1892.  Behring  Sea  arbitration  treaty,  February  29 ;  Death  of  Walt  Whit- 
man, March  26 ;  Gladstone  prime  minister  of  England,  August  1 1  ; 
Centennial  celebration  of  first  French  Republic,  September  22 ;  Death 
of  Tennyson,  October  6 ;  Death  of  Whittier,  September  7. 

1893.  Insurrection  in  Mexico,  January  i  ;  Labor  riots  in  Holland,  January 
2;  Revolution  in  Hawaii,  January  16;  Grover  Cleveland  president  of 
United  States,  March  4 ;  World's  Fair  opens  in  Chicago,  May  i  ;  Eight- 
hour  working  day  meetings  in  England,  May  7  ;  French  in  Siam,  July ; 
Death  of  Tyndall,  December  4. 

1894.  French  troops  in  the  Soudan,  January  25 ;  International  Sanitary 
Conference  at  Paris,  February  7  ;  Gladstone  resigns  and  declines  a  peer- 
age, March  2  ;  Insurrection  and  arbitration  in  South  America,  February, 
March;  "Industrial  armies"  in  United  States,  April;  Opening  of  Man- 
chester ship-canal,  May  21  ;  Strikes  in  Ohio,  Illinois,  and  Pennsylvania, 
June;  Assassination  of  President  Carnot  of  France,  June  24;  Casimir- 
Perier  president  of  France,  June  27  ;  Japan  declares  war  against  China, 
August  I  ;  Battle  of  Yulu  River,  September  16;  Liberal  movement 
against  English  House  of  Lords.  October  27 ;  Death  of  Alexander  II, 
of  Russia,  November  i  ;  Nicholas  II.  czar  of  Russia,  November  2 ; 
Nicaragua  Canal  Company  incorporated,  November  25. 

1895.  Degradation  of  Dreyfus,  January  5 ;  Bread-riot  in  Newfoundland, 
January  8;  Felix  Faure  president  of  France,  January  17;  Japanese 
capture  Wei-Hai-Wei.  January  31  ;  Revolution  in  Cuba,  February  24; 
Treaty  of  peace  between  China  and  Japan,  April  16;  Standard  Oil 
Company  indicted  as  a  Trust.  April  27  ;  Opening  of  Harlem  ship-canal, 
June  17;  World's  Women's  Christian  Temperance  Union  meets  at 
London,  June  19;  Death  of  Huxley,  June  29;  French  victorious  in 
Madagascar.  July  3;  Cuba  declares  her  independence,  July  15;  Li- 
Hung-Chang  chancellor  of  China,  August  30;  Massacres  in  Armenia, 
October;   President  Cleveland's  Venezuela  message,  December  17. 

1896.  Jameson's  raid  into  Transvaal,  January  i  ;  Jameson  surrenders  to 
Boers,  January  2  ;  Roentgen  discovers  X-rays,  January  5 ;  President 
prohibits  prizefighting  in  United  States  territory,  February  7  ;  Anglo- 
American  meetings  in  London  in  favor  of  arbitration,  March  3 ;  Aus- 
tralia declares  for  federation,  March  5  ;  Olympic  games  at  Athens,  April 
6;  Shah  of  Persia  assassinated.  May  i  ;  National  millennium  celebrated 
at  Buda-Pesth,  May  2 ;  Civil  service  in  United  States,  May  6 ;  Mada- 
gascar a  French  colony,  June  20;  Irish  Land  Bill  passed,  August 
13;  Philippine  Islands  revolt  against  Spain,  August  31;  International 
Women's  Congress  at  Berlin,  September  19 ;  Victoria's  reign  now  long- 


396     THE   STORY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

est  in  England's  history,  September  23 ;  Opening  of  Danube  Canal, 
September  27  ;  England's  acceptance  of  Monroe  Doctrine,  November  9 ; 
Death  of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe. 

1897.  Anglo-American  arbitration  treaty  signed  at  Washington,  January 
11;  Venezuela  treaty  signed,  February  2  ;  William  McKinley  president 
of  United  States,  March  4  ;  Sultan  of  Zanzibar  abolishes  slavery,  April 
6;  War  between  Turkey  and  Greece,  April  17;  Arbitration  treaty  re- 
jected by  United  States,  May  17;  Andree's  balloon  search  for  North 
Pole,  July  II  ;  Klondike  gold  craze,  July  17;  Treaty  of  peace  between 
Turkey  and  Greece,  December  4  ;  Sealing-treaty  between  United  States, 
Japan,  and  Russia,  November  6. 

1898.  United  States  battleship  Maine  destroyed  in  Havana,  February  15  ; 
United  States  demand  the  surrender  of  Cuba  from  Spain,  April  20  ; 
War  between  United  States  and  Spain,  April  21  ;  Battle  of  Manila  Bay, 
May  I  ;  Death  of  Gladstone,  May  19;  Destruction  of  Spanish  fleet  at 
Santiago,  July  3;  Surrender  of  Santiago,  July  14;  Americans  capture 
Porto  Rico,  July  28;  United  States  annexed  Hawaii,  August  12  ;  Sur- 
render of  Manila,  August  13;  Czar  of  Russia  proposes  International 
Peace  Conference,  August  27  ;  English  victory  at  Omdurman,  Egypt, 
September  2  ;  Capture  of  Khartoum,  September  4 ;  Wilhelmina  queen 
of  Holland,  September  4 ;  French  at  Fashoda,  September  10;  English 
occupy  Fashoda,  September  20 ;  Dreyfus  case  reopened,  September  27  ; 
Bones  of  Columbus  carried  to  Spain,  September  27  ;  United  States 
demands  the  Philippines,  October  31  ;  Turks  expelled  from  Crete, 
November  7  ;  Treaty  of  Paris,  between  Spain  and  United  States,  Decem- 
mber  10;  Friction  between  Boers  and  Outlanders,  December  29;  Anglo- 
American  League,  July  13;  Death  of  Bismarck. 

1899.  Death  of  President  Faure,  P'ebruary  16  ;  Emile  Loubet  president  of 
France,  February  18;  Samoans  attack  American  and  British  sailors, 
April  i;  Banishment  of  Roger  Williams  (1635)  revoked  by  Massachu- 
setts legislature,  April  18;  Cromwell's  three  hundredth  anniversary  cele- 
brated in  England,  April  25  ;  Rebellion  of  Aguinaldo  in  Philippines, 
February  4  ;  International  Peace  Conference  at  the  Hague,  May  18; 
Dreyfus  declared  guilty,  September  9;  pardoned,  September  19;  War 
between  England  and  the  Dutch  republics,  October  10;  England  relin- 
quishes claims  in  Samoa,  November  8 ;  Samoan  partition  treaty  signed, 
December  2  ;  Aguinaldo's  Philippine  revolt  overthrown,  November  24  ; 
Philippine  ports  opened  to  commerce,  December  11. 


NDEX. 


Abd-el-Kader,  defeats  French,  182. 

Abercrombie,  Dr.,  discovery  in  med- 
icine, 127. 

Abolition  of  slavery,  English,  143. 

Aboukir,  victory  of,  37. 

Adams,  John,  44  ;  death  of,  128. 

Adams,  John  Quincy ;  declines  An- 
glo-American alliance,  105  ;  joint 
author  of  Monroe  Doctrine,  107  ; 
advocates  Pan-American  Con- 
gress, 129;  defeat  of,  130. 

Adrianople,  peace  of,  125. 

Afghanistan  in  1800,  19. 

Africa  in  1800,  20;  little  known  in 
1825,  112;  commercial  value  rec- 
ognized, 113;  explorers  in,  290; 
"  scramble  for,"  332. 

Afrikander  Bund,  the,  332. 

Alaska  in   1800,  22. 

Albuera,  battle  of,  67. 

Alexander  II.,  czar,  accession  of, 
221  ;  emancipates  serfs,  256. 

Alfieri,  27. 

Alfonso  XII.,  king  of  Spain,  305. 

Algiers,  dey  of,  43. 

Alma,  battle  of,  218. 

Alsace  and  Lorraine  lost  by  France, 
283. 

American  Fur  Company,  119. 

Amiens,  treaty  of,  31. 

Anaesthetics,  value  of,  196. 

Anarchists  in  Austria,  323. 

Anderson,  Major  Robert,  248. 

Andes,  San  Martin  crosses,  89. 

Angamos  Point,  battle  of,  322. 

Anglo  American  Alliance  suggested 
in  1S23,  105. 

Anglo-Saxon   influence    and    union, 

38'- 
Angostura,  battle  of,  89. 


Apia,  hurricane  at,  337. 

Appomattox,  surrender  at,  261, 

Arabi  Pasha,  revolt  of,  318. 

Arctic  explorations  in  1825,  118;  in 
1S50,  208;  later  discoveries,  290. 

Armenian  revolt  of  1896,  365. 

Arndt  rouses  Germany,  73  ;  song  to 
Bliicher,  75  ;  persecuted,  121. 

Asia  attracts  European  nations,  113. 

Asia  Minor  in  i8oc,  19. 

Aspern,  battle  of,  55. 

Astor,  John  Jacob,  founds  Astoria, 
119. 

Astronomy  in  1830,  149. 

Art  in  Nineteenth  Century,  349. 

Atlantic  cable,  first  despatch,  231. 

Atomic  theory,  18. 

Auerstadt,  battle  of,  48. 

Austerlitz,  battle  of,  48  ;  "  Sun  of," 
48  ;  results  of,  48. 

Australia  in  1800,  23  ;  in  1825,  113. 

Australian  farmers  object  to  aboU- 
tion  of  slavery,  143. 

Australasia  in  1800,  23  ;  federation 
desired,  320. 

Austria  in  coalition,  20,  39,  43  ;  Na- 
poleon quarrels  with,  54  ;  defeat 
of,  56  ;  wins  coalition  of  18 13,  74  ; 
troubles  of,  in  184S,  191  ;  seeks 
help  of  Russia,  191 ;  war  with  Ger- 
many, 267  ;  grants  Hungary  re- 
forms,   270 ;    electoral   reform  in, 

305- 
Austro-Prussian  war  of  i866,  266. 
Ayacucho,  battle  of,  104. 

Bainbridge,  Com.,  43. 
Balaclava,  battle  of,  218. 
Ballooning,  17. 
Ballou,  Hosea,  position  of,  194. 


397 


39S 


INDEX. 


Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railway  begun, 
138. 

Balzac  on  Napoleon,  102  ;  on  revo- 
lutions, 158;  on  North  America, 
160;  on  American  liberty,  175. 

Barbary  pirates,  42. 

"  Battle  of  the  Nations."  See  Leip- 
sic. 

Bautzen,  battle  of,  73. 

Baylen,  battle  of,  53. 

Beechey,  Captain,  in  the  Arctic,  119. 

Behring  Sea  arbitration,  357. 

Belgium  under  French  control,  20  ; 
revolt  in,  136;  independence  rec- 
ognized, 137  ;   universal   suffrage 

in,  357- 
Beranger,  songs  of,  133  ;  on  change 

of  governments,  136. 
BerUn,  capture  of,  48  ;  congress  at, 

285  ;  conference  of  1877  in>  3°?  '< 

in  1889,  337. 
Berzsenyi,    hated    by    Austria    for 

liberalism,  122. 
Bessemer  process  of  steel,  231. 
Bethlehem,  key  of  church  at,  216, 

Beust,  Baron,  liberal  Austrian  min- 
ister, 270. 

Bismarck  becomes  chancellor,  266  ; 
head  of  North  German  confed- 
eration, 267  ;  snubs  Louis  Napo- 
leon, 268  ;  defeats  Napoleon's 
schemes,  280  ;  effective  war  meas- 
ures of,  281  ;  forces  demands  at 
Peace  of  Versailles,  283  ;  creator 
of  German  unity,  254  ;  typical  of 
his  age,  296  ;  wins  "  Culturkampf," 
296 ;  socialism,  298  ;  achievements 
of,  308  ;  methods  of,  317  ;  unpopu- 
larity of,  322 ;  paternal  rule  of,  326; 
revolt  agamst,  327  ;  dismissal  of, 
331,  350  ;  in  Samoan  affairs,  337. 

Bjomson,  Norwegian  reformer,  322  ; 
patriotism  of,  356. 

Black  Hawk,  the  Sac,  155. 

Blaine,  James  G.,  plans  Pan-Amer- 
ican Congress,  338. 

Blucher,  field-marshal,  75. 

Boers  of  Africa,  40  ;  object  to  abo- 
lition of  slavery,  143;  in  Trans- 
vaal, 289 ;  native  protest  against, 


30S  ;     proclaims    South    African 
Republic,  318  ;  war  with  England, 

371- 

Bolivar,  Simon,  "  the  Liberator," 
oath  on  Mount  Aventine,  88  ;  cap- 
tuies  Caracas,  89  ;  in  Peru,  103 ; 
meets  San  Martin,  103  ;  proposes 
Pan-American  Congress,  129  ; 
death  of,  129. 

Bonaparte.     See  Napoleon. 

Booth,  of  Salvation  Army,  325. 

Borodino,  battle  of,  70. 

Botany  in  1830,  149 

Boulanger,  rise  and  fall  of,  330. 

Boiilogne,  fleet  at,  37  ;  Louis  Napo- 
leon at,  169. 

Bourbons,  return  of,  76. 

Boyaca,  battle  of,  89. 

Boycotting,  321. 

Bozzaris,  Marco,  sortie  of,  iii. 

Bramah,  Joseph,  safety  lock,  16. 

Brazil,  independence  of,  103  ;  condi- 
tion in  1870,  288  ;  becomes  repub- 
lic, 335- 

Brest,  victory  at,  37. 

Bright,  John,  sides  with  United 
States  in  Civil  War,  251,  257; 
"  tribune  of  the  people,"  269  ;  ad- 
vocates "justice  to  Ireland,"  320. 

Bright,  Richard,  discoveries  in  med- 
icine, 127. 

Broussais,  researches  in  medicine, 
127. 

Brunei,  Marc,  ship-building  machin- 
ery, 17. 

Brown,  Jessie,  at  Lucknow,  233. 

Brown,  John,  executed  for  insurrec- 
tion, 232. 

Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett,  on  Na- 
poleon III.,  207  ;  on  entry  into 
Milan,  224  ;  on  death  of  Cavour, 
242  ;  on  American  "  curse,"  245  ; 
death  of,  242. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  27  ;  pub- 
lishes "  Thanatopsis,"  99. 

Buffaloes,  hunting  of,  for  robes,  120. 

Bums,  Robert,  26. 

Byron,  Lord,  26  ;  on  Napoleon,  77  ; 
publishes  "  Childe  Harold,"  84  ; 
in  Greek  war  of  independence, 
ic8  ;  death  of,  1 10. 


INDEX. 


399 


Cable,  Atlantic,  successfully  laid, 
271. 

Calcutta,  National  Congress  at,  356. 

Calhoun,  champion  of  slavcrj',  184. 

California,  gold  discovered  in,  201  ; 

.    admitted  to  Union,  202. 

Canada,  union  of,  175  ;  wise  colonial 
government  of,  286  ;  proclaimed 
Dominion,  272  ;  Kiel's  rebellion, 
273  ;  federation  of,  273  ;  almost  a 
democracy,  358. 

Canning  in  power,  124. 

Cape  Colony,  condition  of,  in  1870, 
289. 

Caracas,  capture  of,  89. 

Carbonari  in  Italy,  87 ;  revolt  of, 
108. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  influence  of,  194  ; 
"  French  Revolution  "  of,  150  ;  in- 
fluence of,  293. 

Carpenisi,  battle  of,  iii. 

Caroline,  Queen,  troubles  of,  123. 

Carroll,  Charles,  of  CarroUton,  138. 

Castelar,  Emilio,  leads  Spanish  re- 
publicans, 269  ;  desires  of,  305. 

Cavour,  Count  di,  rise  of,  193  ;  in 
Victor  Emmanuel's  cabinet,  205  ; 
appearance  of,  219;  Crimean  tri- 
umph of,  220;  appeals  to  France, 
222,  223  ;  move  against  Austria, 
223 ;  president  of  council,  234 ; 
pledges  territory,  240  ;  success  of, 

241  ;  death  of,  242  ;  influence  of, 

242  ;  true  prophet,  279. 
Cawnpore,  massacre  at,  233. 
Centennial  Exhibition  of  1S76,  301. 
Central  America,  United  States  of, 

374- 
Cervera,  fatal  dash  of,  371. 
Channing,  William  Ellery,  position 

of,  194. 
Chappe,  Claude,  telegraphy,  17. 
Chapultepec,  and    Molino  del  Rey, 

Mexican  holidays,  183. 
"  Charcoal  burners  "  of  the  Abruzzi. 

See  Carbonari. 
"  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,"  218. 
Charles,  Archduke,  55. 
Charles  X.  of  France,  135  ;  deposed, 

136. 
Chartists,  the,  150. 


Chassagne,  photograph  in  colors, 
376. 

Chauteaubriand,  influence  of,  loi. 

Chicago,  World's  Fair  at,  in  1893, 
352  ;  marvellous  growth  of,  353. 

Chili,  war  with  Peru  and  Bolivia, 
322. 

China  in  1800,  18;  England's  foot- 
ing in,  170;  opened  to  outside 
commerce,  209  ;  rebellion  in,  210  ; 
war  with  Japan,  358,  365. 

Chloroform,  discovery  of,  196. 

Christianity,  world's  convention  of, 

193- 

"  Citizen  King,"  the.  See  Louis 
Philippe. 

Ciudad  Rodrigo,  battle  of,  67. 

Clay,  Henry,  and  Missouri  Com- 
promise, 145 ;  Compromise  of 
1850,  185 ;  death  of,  211,  212. 

Clinton,  De  Witt,  opens  Erie  canal, 
116. 

Clive  in  India,  23. 

Cobbett,  William,  reformer,  91. 

Cobden,  Richard,  influence  of,  172. 

Colombia,  republic  of,  declared,  89 

Colonial  possessions  of  European 
states,  202. 

Colonial  possessions  of  world  in 
1900,  379. 

Cotton-gin,  18. 

Comenius,  25. 

Commercial  league  organized  in 
Pnis.sia,  138. 

Commune  desolates  Paris,  283 ; 
overthrown,  2S3. 

Communists  in  France,  323. 

Compromise  of  1850,  185,  212. 

Confederation  of  the  Rhine,  48. 

Conference,    Universal    Peace,   367, 

37-4- 
Congress  of  Kings.   See  Dresden. 
"  Continental  System  "  of  Napoleon, 

57- 
Cooper,  J.  Fenimore,  27  ;  publishes 

"  The  Spy,"  99. 
Cooper,  Peter,  philanthropy  of,  325 
Corunna,  battle  of,  53. 
Crimean  War,  21 8. 
Crispi,  Italian  prime  minister,  defeat 

of,  330. 


400 


INDEX. 


Cronje,  heroic  stand  of,  371. 

Crystal  palace  of  1851,  215. 

Cuba,  slavery  abolished  in,  320;  rev- 
olution in,  365;  aided  by  United 
States,  369  ;  liberation  of,  366. 

"  Culturkampf  "  the.    See  Bismarck. 

Czar  of  Russia  head  of  Holy  Al- 
liance,i04  ;  emancipate  sserfs,  256. 

Daguerre  discovers  daguerreotype, 
178. 

Dale,  43. 

Dal  ton,  John,  atomic  theory,  17. 

Darwin,  investigations  of,  292. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  inaugurated,  244. 

Davy,  Sir  Humphry,  against  gas- 
lighting,  94. 

Deak,  Francis,  recognized  by  Aus- 
tria, 270. 

Decatur,  43. 

"  Decrees  of  1807,"  49. 

Delhi,  siege  of,  233. 

Disraeli,  policy  as  prime  minister, 
299. 

Draper,  Professor,  makes  photo- 
graphic picture,  178. 

Dresden,  congress  at,  in  181 1,  68. 

Democracy,  "arrival  of,"  382. 

Denmark,  defeat  of,  in  1864,  255. 

Denmark  under  French  control,  20. 

Derzhavin,  27. 

Dewey,  Adm.,  at  Manila,  370. 

Diaz,  Porfirio,  ability  of,  288. 

Dickens,  "Pickwick  Papers,"  150. 

Dreyfus  case,  the,  374. 

Dom  Pedro  II.,  of  Brazil,  wisdom 
of,  284  ;  exile  of,  334. 

Dost  Mohammed,  154. 

Dutch  in  Africa,  40. 

Eastern  Question,  the,  166. 
Education  in  1800,  25. 
Egypt  against  Turkey,  167. 
Edison,  Thomas  Alva,  age  of,  346, 

375- 

Elba,  island  of,  76 ;  Napoleon  es- 
capes from,  77. 

Electricity,  development  of,  375. 

"  Embargo  Act,"  50. 

Emancipation  Proclamation.  See 
Lincoln. 


Emerson,   Ralph   Waldo,    influence 

of,  194,  293. 
Emmett,  Robert,  41. 
Engineering  projects  in  1899,  375. 

England  in  North  Amenca,  22 ;  in 
Asia  in  1800,  23;  opposition  to 
Napoleon,  ;i2y  35'  4i  I  i"  "805, 
45;  against  Europe,  49  ;  literature 
in  1820,  99 ;  suggests  alliance 
with  U.  S.,  105;  recognizes  Mon- 
roe doctrine,  107  ;  first  railway  in, 
116;  reforms  demanded  in,  122; 
influence  of  French  revolution  on, 
122;  takes  Hong  Kong,  180;  af- 
fairs in  1840,  171;  foreign  pos- 
sessions of,  202  ;  in  China,  209 ; 
joins  France  in  Crimean  war,  217  ; 
literature  in  i860,  230,  234  ;  quells 
Sepoy  mutiny,  233 ;  position 
toward  U.  S.  in  civil  war,  251  ; 
friendly  vnth,  257 ;  workingmen 
of,  favor  U.  S.,  258 ;  reforms  of 
1870,  273;  in  Asia,  318;  Victo- 
rian Jubilee  in,  329 ;  imperial  fed- 
eration of,  331  ;  war  with  Boers, 
371  ;  vastness  of  colonial  posses- 
sions, 380. 

English  people  defend  Queen  Caro- 
line, 123. 

English-speaking  world,  381. 

"  Era  of  Good  FeeUng,"  U.  S.,  93. 

Erfurt,  Goethe  and  Napoleon  at,  84. 

Erie  Canal  opened,  116. 

Esseling,  battle  of,  55. 

Ether,  discovery  of,  196. 

Ethics  in  1830,  149. 

Ethnology  in  1830,  149. 

Europe  at  war  in  1800,  24  ;  in  1805, 
47  ;  in  1806,  48  ;  on  the  defensive 
in  1810,  58;  revolution  of  1830, 
137;  in  1840,  172;  upheaval  in 
1848,  188;  discontent  in,  323. 

Exhibition,International,of  1851,215. 

Expansion  in  1830,  154. 

Eylau,  battle  of,  48. 

Finland  "Russified,"  339. 
Ferdinand  of  Austria,  flight  of,  188  ; 

abdication  of,  191. 
Florida   sold   by    Spain    to  United 

States,  90. 


INDEX. 


401 


"  Forces  of  France."  See  National 
Guard. 

France  in  North  America,  21  ;  co- 
lonial defeats,  69 ;  invasion  of, 
76 ;  becomes  constitutional  mon- 
archy, 136 ;  abolishes  hereditary 
peerage,  137;  early  railroads  in, 
139;  excluded  from  European 
councils,  167,  170 ;  revolution  of 
1848,  187;  literature  in,  230;  peo- 
ple friendly  to  U.  S.,  251  ;  declares 
war  against  Germany,  280 ;  in 
war  with  Germany,  281  ;  defeated 
by  Germany,  282 ;  colonial  ad- 
vance  of,   322 ;    communism    in, 

323- 
Francke,  Hermann,  25. 
Francis    Joseph,  accession   of,  191  ; 

at  Villa  Franca,  225. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  prophecy  of,i6  ; 

experiments  of,  18. 
Franklin,   Sir   John,  in   the  Arctic, 

119;  loss  of,  208. 
Friedland,  battle  of,  48. 
Froebel,    founds    his    kindergarten 

system,  127. 
Freiligrath,  Friedrich,  love  of  father- 
land, 134. 
Frederick  the  Great,  prediction  of, 

301  ;  disproved,  303. 
Frederick    III.  of   Germany,  death 

of,  327. 
Fulton,  Robert,  61. 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  185,  213. 

Galvani,  Luigi,  galvanism,  17. 

Gambetta,  methods  of,  317;  leader 
in  France,  322  ;  defeat  of,  330. 

Garibaldi,  revolt  of,  226;  enters 
Palermo,  239,  240 ;  character  of, 
239 ;  revolts  in  Southern  Italy, 
240 ;  dictator  of  Sicily,  240 ;  in- 
vades Roman  territory ;  defeated, 
279. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  favors  se- 
cession, 246. 

Gas  in  use,  17. 

Geneva  Cross,  the,  360. 

Geneva,  Labor  Congress  at,  274. 

Geography  in  1830,  149. 

Geology  in  1830,  149. 


George  III.,  obstinacy  of,  34  ;  death 
of,  92. 

George  IV.,  regent  and  king,  92  ; 
persecutes  Queen  Caroline,  123. 

George,  Henry,  efforts  of,  319; 
land-relief  plans,  320. 

Germany  in  1805,  41  ;  humiliation 
of,  57;  literature  in  1820,  100; 
condition  in  1825,  120;  literature 
in  i860,  230;  growth  of,  266; 
Bismarck  chancellor  of,  266 ;  war 
with  Austria,  267  ;  growing  power 
of,  280;  war  with  P' ranee,  281; 
defeats  France,  282  ;  "  bulwark  of 
peace,"  285  ;  socialism  in,  297  ;  na- 
tional monument  erected  by,  309  ; 
paternal  government  of,  327  ;  re- 
volt against  Bismarck,  327. 

Gettysburg,  battle  of,  249 ;  Lincoln 
at,  259. 

Goethe  in  1800,26;  in  1805  84; 
completes  "  Faust,"  120. 

Gold  in  California,  201  ;  developed 
in  South  Africa,  339. 

"Good  roads,"  61. 

Gordon,  General,  abandonment    of, 

319- 

Gorgei,  Hungarian  general,  191  ; 
surrender  of,  192. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  sides  with  South- 
ern Confederacy,  251  ;  prime  min- 
ister, 273  ;  influence  of,  285  ; 
defeated,  298;  methods  of,  316; 
foreign  policy  of,  318;  criticized, 
319;  concession  to  Ireland,  319; 
defeat  of,  330 ;  premier  for  fourth 
time,  356  ;  on  Woman's  Suffrage, 
361. 

"  Grand  Old  Man,"  the.  See  Glad- 
stone. 

Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  249 ;  defeats 
Lee,  261  ;  president  U.  S.,  295. 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  United 
Kingdom  of,  ^^ ;  parliament  of, 
138. 

Great  Eastern  launched,  232. 

Greece,  powers  interfere  in  behalf 
of,  125  ;  independence  declared, 
125  ;  war  with  Turkey,  366. 

Greeley,  Horace,  favors  secession, 
246. 


402 


INDEX. 


Greerv,  on  Washington,  15. 

Grimm,  the  brothers,   banished  for 

Uberahsm,  121. 
Guayaquil,     "  liberators "    meet   at, 

103. 
Guizot  founds  popular  educational 

system,  138;  prime  minister,  171. 

Hague,  Peace  Conference  of  1899 
at,  367. 

Hahnemann  founds  homoeopathy 
127. 

Hall,  Newman,  prayer  for  the  Union 
cause  in  United  States,  251. 

Halleck.  Fitz-Greene,  27  ;  on  Marco 
Bozzaris,  in. 

Havelock,  march  of,  233. 

Hawaii  becomes  constitutional  mon- 
archy, 336 ;  annexed,  370. 

Heber,  Reginald,  missionary  hymn, 
118. 

Heine,  the  satirist,  134;  influence 
of,  158. 

Herschel,  William,  telescopes,  17. 

Herzegovina,  revolt  of,  306  ;  appeal 
to  Europe,  308. 

Higher  education,  360. 

Hill,  John,  originator  of  postal  ser- 
vice, 179. 

Hill,  Sir  Rowland,  inaugurates  pen- 
ny-postage, 179. 

History,  in  1830,  149. 

Hofer,  Andreas,  56. 

Holland  under  French  control,  20, 

39- 

Holy  Alliance  formed,  104  ;  warned 
by  United  States,  107  ;  interferes 
in  Europe,  108 ;  arouses  Byron. 
108;  fears  Greek  success,  in; 
puts  down  revolt,  137  ;  Cannning 
defies,  124. 

"  Holy  Roman  Empire  "  abolished, 
40. 

Homoeopathy.      See  Hahnemann. 

Hong  Kong,  England  assumes  pos- 
session of,  170;  occupied  by  Eng- 
land, 209. 

Horse  railroad,  first,  138. 

Howells  on  Tolstoi,  315. 

Hudson's  Bay  Company,  119. 

Hugo,    Victor,    on     Napoleon,    82; 


"  Hernani,"    133;    on     Napoleon 

in.,  207. 
Humboldt,  Alex,  von,  self-banished 

for  liberalism,  122. 
Hungary  desires  independence,  116; 

revolution  in,    188 ;  condition  in, 

190;    declares   its   independence, 

192. 
Hung-sew-tseuen,  leader  of  Tai-ping 

rebellion,  210. 

Ibrahim  Pacha  in  Greece,  1 10 ; 
retreats,  125;  unsuccess,  155. 

Improvements  in  1810,61. 

India  in  1800,  19;  first  telegram 
from,  271. 

Indians,  American,  in  1800,  21. 

Inkerman,  battle  of,  218. 

International  Association  of  Labor- 
ers, 274. 

Inventions,  progress  of,  in  1850, 195. 

Ireland,  union  with  "  United  King- 
dom, 33 ;  in  1879,  300 ;  land 
league  in,  301  ;  concessions  to, 
319  ;  "  justice,"  320. 

Irving,  Washington,  27  ;  publishes 
"  Sketch-Book,"  99. 

Isabella  of  Spain,  flight  of,  269; 
son  of,  king,  305. 

Italy  under  French  control,  20,  40. 

Iturbide,  revolts  against  Spain,  90. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  hatred  of  Eng- 
land, 69 ;  conqueror  of  Florida, 
93;  president  United  States,  130; 
the  "Age"  of,  133  ;  "makes  his 
mark,"  151  ;  influence  of,  153, 159. 

Jameson's  raid,  371. 

Japan  in  1800,  19;  treaty  with 
United  States,  211;  sends  em- 
bassy abroad,  256;  advance  in, 
304 ;  constitutional  monarchy, 
335 ;  development  of,  358 ;  war 
with  China,  359. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  purchase  of 
Louisiana,  36  ;  in  1805,  41  ;  pro- 
claims embargo,  50;  dislike  of 
England,  79  ;  suggests  "  Monroe 
Doctrine,"  107;  death  of,  128. 

Jena,  battle  of,  48  ;  University  of,  85. 

Jenner,  Edward,  vaccination,  17. 


INDEX. 


403 


Jews,  treatment  of,  by  Napoleon,  62; 

English  parliament  open  to,  235. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  26. 
Johnson,  Andrew,  impeachment  of, 

263. 
Joseph,  king  of   Spain,   objects   to 

Napoleon's  methods,  66. 

Karamzen,  27. 

Kansas-Nebraska  trouble,  228. 

Katkoff,  Russian  nationalist,  328. 

Kandahar,  relief  of,  319. 

Kean,  85. 

Kemble,  84. 

Khame,  Zulu  chief,  appeal  of,  308. 

Kipling,  on  "  Flag  of  England,"  380. 

Kidd,  Benjamin,  on  changing  order 

of  the  centurj',  364. 
Klondike,  gold  in.  377. 
Koch,  discovers  consumption   cure, 

359- 

Kossuth,  Louis,  the  liberator,  165  ; 
impulsiveness  of,  173;  demands 
independence,  174  ;  boycotts  Aus- 
tria, 185  ;  rouses  Hungary  to  rev- 
olution, 188;  leader  of  people, 
190  ;  governor,  192  ;  defeat  of,  193. 

Korea  causes  war  in  East,  358. 

Korner,  "  Sword  Song,"  74  ;  arouses 
Germany,  85. 

Kriloff,  27. 

Kruger,  Paul,  influence  of,  371. 

Labor-saving  machinery,  140. 
Labor  troubles,  355. 
Laenec,  researches  in  medicine,  127. 
Lafayette        commands      National 

Guard,    135 ;     refuses    crown   of 

France,   1 36. 
Lampedusa,   island.    United   States 

desires,  203. 
"  Land  Grab,"  the  Turkish,  307. 
Land  League.     See  Ireland. 
Land      Nationalism.       See     Henry 

George. 
Laplace,  astronomer,  17. 
"  League  of  Peace,"  the,  351. 
League   of    the    f^our    Kings,    204  ; 

League  of  the  Three  Kings,  204. 
Lee,  Robert  E.,  249  ;  defeat  of,  261  ; 

on  Southern  loyalty,  261. 


Leipsic,  battle  of,  74. 

Leopold  of  Hohenzollem  offered 
crown  of  Spain,  270. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  elected,  229  ; 
nominated,  239 ;  character  of, 
239,  243  ;  election  of,  243  ;  obscu- 
rity of,  243 ;  pleas  for  Union, 
245;  on  Slavery,  247  ;  conserva- 
tion of,  249 ;  issues  Emancipa- 
tion proclamation,  250 ;  to  Eng- 
hsh  workingmen,  258 ;  speech 
at  Gettysburg,  259 ;  re-elected, 
260  ;  asassination  of,  262  ;  char- 
acter of,  263  ;  age  of,  275. 

Liberia,  republic  of,  233- 

Literature  in  1800,  26 ;  in  i860, 
229,  234;  in  1890,  347. 

Lithography,  17. 

Liquid  air  discovered,  376. 

Livingstone,  Dr.  David,  explora- 
tions in  Africa,  208,  232  ;  "  dis- 
covers "  Africa,  289. 

Livesey,  Joseph,    first    "  teetotaler," 

147- 

Locke,  John,  25. 

Locomotives  in  America,  138. 

Lombardy  annexed  to  Sardinia,  224. 

London,  Conference  of,  125. 

London  Times  on  America  in  sci- 
ence, 304. 

Louise  of  Prussia,  Queen,  avenged, 
282. 

Louisiana,  sale  of,  by  Napoleon,  36, 

45- 
Louis,  Napoleon,  at  Boulogne,  169; 
imprisoned,  170  :  escape  of,  185; 
in  France,  elected  to  National  As- 
sembly, 189  ;  president  of  French 
republic,  190;  ambitions  of,  205 
cou/)  d'etat  of,  206;  emperor,  206 
brings  about  Crimean  war,  216. 
unites  with  England  against  Rus- 
sia, 217  ;  helps  Cavour,  222  ;  joins 
Italy  against  Austria,  22  ;  de- 
clares war  against  Austria,  224  ; 
serts  Italy,  225 ;  hostility  of  toward 
America,  246  ;  unfriendly  to  the 
Union,  251  ;  desires  to  found 
Latin  kingdom  in  America,  252  ; 
invades  Mexico,  254 ;  conquers 
Mexico,    and    makes   Maximilian 


404 


INDEX. 


emperor,  254 ;  in  European  af- 
fairs, 254  ;  warned,  264  ;  evacuates 
Mexico,  265  ;  schemes  in  Europe, 
265 ;  height  of  power,  266  ; 
"  Sphinx  of  the  Tuileries,"  265  ;  in 
Austro-Prassian  war,  268 ;  angered 
over  German  "  influence "  in 
Spain,  270  ;  seeks  war  with  Ger- 
many, 270  ;  refuses  Rome  to  Italy, 

279  ;  schemes  of,  280 ;  protests 
against   German   king  for  Spain, 

280  ;  proclaims  war  against  Ger- 
many, 280 ;  defeat  and  surrender 
of,  281. 

Louis  Philippe,  king  of  France,  136, 
165  ;  gives  Egypt  no  support,  167  ; 
asks  England  for  "  ashes  of  Na- 
poleon," 167  ;  unpopularity  of, 
170  ;  abdication  of,  187. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  on  progress, 
196;  on  Villa  Franca,  227. 

Lucknow,  relief  of,  233. 

Luneville,  peace  of,  31. 

Liitzen,  battle  of,  73. 

Lyceum  of  the  Czar,  86. 

Macadam,  61. 

McClure,  Robert,  Arctic  explora- 
tions of,  208. 

Mackenzie,  Robert,  on  Napoleon, 
82  ;  on  Charles  X.,  135. 

Madison  in  War  of  181 2,  77. 

Madrid,  capture  of,  53. 

Magenta,  battle  of,  224. 

"  Maine,"  destruction  of  the,  369. 

Maipo,  battle  of  the,  90. 

Majuba  Hill,  battle  of,  318. 

Malakoff,  the,  at  Sebastopol,  220  ; 
fall  of,  221. 

Malta,  cause  of  war,  38. 

"  Man  with  the  hoe  "  in  1825,  120. 

Manchester,  massacre  at,  92. 

Mann,  Horace,  fights  for  education, 
127  ;  influence  of,  161. 

Manzoni,  pleas  of,  133. 

Marengo,  battle  of,  31. 

Marx,  Karl,  socialist,  274. 

Mathew,  Father,  temperance  cru- 
sade of,  148. 

Maximilian  made  emperor  of  Mexico, 
254  ;  defeated  and  executed,  265. 


Mazzini  supports  Garibaldi,  240. 

Mechanical  successes  in  1830,  149. 

Mehemet  Ali,  rise  of,  32  ;  in  Greece, 
no;  revolts  against  Turkey,  166. 

Menlo  Park,  "  Wizard  of."  See  Edi- 
son. 

Mentana,  battle  of,  279. 

Metternich,  diplomacy  of,  157;  meth- 
ods of,  173  ;  flight  of,  188. 

Mexico,  last  heretic  burned  in,  112  j 
war  with  United  States,  182  ;  in- 
fluence of  war  on,  183  ;  in  1861, 
252  ;  trouble  with  European  cred- 
itors, 252  ;  invaded  by  allies,  253  ; 
war  with  France,  254  ;  America 
supports,  264  ;  French  evacuate, 
265  ;  defeats  and  executes  Max- 
imilian, 265  ;  prosperity  in,  288. 

Mickiewicz  seeks  to  arouse  interest 
in  Poland,  174. 

Midhat  Pasha,  grand  vizier,  306 ; 
abandoned,  307. 

Milan,  Victor  Emmanuel  enters,  224. 

Militarism  holds  people  in  check, 
1820,  103. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  essay  "  On  Lib- 
erty," 239  ;  character  of,  239. 

Millet,  Jean  Fran9ois,  at  Barbazon, 
120. 

Minto,  Prof.,  on  Byron,  108. 

Miranda,  "  knight-errant  of  liberty," 
88. 

Missionary  movement  in  1825,  117  ; 
character,  208. 

Missolonghi,  Byron  dies  at,  no; 
siege  of,  no;  Marco  Bozzaris  at, 
III. 

Missouri,  admission  of,  93,  145. 

Mohl,  Madam,  on  Napoleon  III. ,222. 

Monroe,  James,  president,  93,  105  ; 
announces  his  "  Doctrine,"  105. 

Monroe  Doctrine,  105;  accepted  by 
the  world,  107  ;  joint  responsibility 
for,  107  ;  effect  of,  on  Europe,  107. 

Montebello,  battle  of,  224. 

Moiitgolfier,  ballooning,  17. 

Montgomery,  secession  convention 
at,  244  ;  loyalty  of,  in  1876,  302. 

Moore,  Sir  John,  "  Burial  of,"  53. 

Moore,  Thomas,  26 ;  on  Emmett, 
41  ;  Irish  melodies,  84. 


INDEX. 


405 


Morse,  S.  F.  B.,  designs  first  tele- 
graph, 141  ;  sends  first  telegram, 
180. 

Moscow,  capture  of,  70  ;  retreat 
from,  71  ;  university  of,  86. 

Mount  Cenis  tunnel,  232. 

Naples,  Victor  Emmanuel  enters, 
241. 

Napoleon,  influence  of,  15;  First 
Consul,  31;  king  of  Italy,  31 ;  em- 
peror of  .P'rance,  31  ;  power  of, 
32  ;  ambition  of,  35  ;  after  Trafal- 
gar, 46  ;  in  Spain,  53  ;  insatiate 
appetite  for  conquest,  54  ;  "  lord 
of  the  universe,"  58  ;  influence  of, 
59  ;  grip  of,  61  ;  supremacy  of,  in 
1810  ;  treatment  of  Spain,  66  ;  in 
181 1,  68;  stirs  up  war  between 
England  and  United  States,  68  ; 
'(Grand  Army"  of,  in  1812,  70; 
invades  Russia,  70 ;  in  Moscow, 
71  ;  retreats,  72  j  raises  new  army 
in  1813,  72  ;  coalition  against,  73  ; 
refuses  truce,  75  ;  defeated,  76 ; 
banished  to  Elba,  76 ;  lands  in 
France,  77  ;  conquered  and  ban- 
ished to  St.  Helena,  77  ;  age 
closed,  81  ;  death  of,  loi  ;  on  the 
future  of  Europe,  157  ;  second 
funeral  of,  167,  169  ;  on  American 
"  e.xpansion,"  203. 

Nares  near  North  and  South  poles, 
291. 

National  Guard  of  France  hiss 
Charles  X.,  135. 

Navarino,  battle  of,  125. 

Needle-gun,  invention  of,  267. 

Nelson,  Horatio,  victories  of,  38 ; 
death  of,  39. 

New  Guinea  in  iSoo,  23. 

New  Orieans,  battle  of,  80. 

Newspapers,  growth  and  power  of, 

351- 

New  Zealand  in  1800,  23. 

Niagara  forced  to  work,  375. 

Nicholas  I.  of  Russia,  absolutism 
of,  157  ;  death  of,  221. 

Nicholas  II.  of  Russia,  advances 
under,  357  ;  proposes  peace  con- 
ference, 367  ;  invites  the  world,  368. 


Nice  pledged  to  France,  240. 
Niebuhr,  Roman  history,  84 
Niederwald,  national  monument  on, 

309- 
Niemen  River,  Napoleon  crosses,  70. 
Nightingale,    Florence,    service    of, 

219. 
Nineteen    Hundred,    the   world   in, 

383. 
North  German  Confederation,  266, 

267. 
Northwest  Company,  119. 
Northwest  Passage  discovered,  208. 
Norway  under  French  control,  20. 

Obstacles  in  1885,  321. 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  Irish  agitator, 
174  ;  defeat  of,  175. 

"  On  to  Beriin  I  "  281. 

Opposition  to  constituted  govern- 
ment, 323. 

Orange  Free  State,  289. 

"  Orders  in  Council,"  49. 

Ornithology  in  1830,  149. 

Outlanders,  revolt  of,  370. 

Pacific  railroad  built,  272. 
Palmerston,  Lord,  consents  to  give 

France  remains  of  Napoleon,  168  ; 

foremost  statesman,  170 ;  on  Louis 

Napoleon,  226. 
Panama,  Pan-American  Congress  at, 

129;  canal,  339. 
Pan-American     Congress   fair    pro- 
posed, 129  ;  in  1889,  338. 
Parini,  27. 
Paris  captured,  1814,76;  revolt  in, 

186  ;  surrender  of,  282  ;  commune 

in,  283. 
Parliament  of  ReHgions,  the,  353. 
Parnell,  Charles  Stuart,  Irish  leader, 

300  ;  arrest  of,  317. 
Parn-,  Lieutenant,  in  the  Arctic,  1 19. 
Pasteur,  hydrophobia  cure,  359. 
Peace,  conference  for  universal,  367, 

374;  victories  of,  351. 
Pedro,  Dom,  emperor  of  Brazil,  103. 
Perry,    Commodore    M.    C,   opens 

China  to  America,  210. 
Persia,  in  iSoo,  19. 
Peru,  battle-ground  of  South  Atner- 


4o6 


INDEX. 


ican  independence,  103  ;  conquest 
of,  104  ;  war  with  Chili,  322. 

Pestalozzi,  25  ;  educating  the  people, 
127. 

Petofi,  author  of  Hungary's  Marseil- 
laise, 192. 

Philadelphia,  exhibition  of  1876,  301. 

Philanthropy,  age  of,  328. 

Philhellenes,  or  "  Friends  of 
Greece,"  no. 

Philippines,  ceded  to  United  States, 
370. 

Philology  in  1830,  149. 

Philosophy  in  1830,  149. 

Photography,  advances  in,  376. 

Physiology  in  1830,  149. 

Pinckney,  reply  to  France,  23. 

Pitt,  Willian,  leader  of  England,  23^ 
34 ;  after  Austerlitz,  48 ;  after 
Trafalgar,  48. 

Plevna,  siege  of,  307. 

Plombieres,  alliance  of,  223. 

Poland  revolution  in,  137  ;  "  Russifi- 
cation  "  of,  337. 

Polytechnic  of  Paris,  86. 

Pope,the,  a  prisoner  of  Napoleon,  57. 

Portugal  under  French  control,  20  ; 
revolts  from  Napoleon,  51,  52  ; 
aroused  against  Napoleon,  67. 

Postage,  penny,  in  England,  179. 

Postage-stamp,  first,  179. 

Prague,  treaty  of,  267. 

Preble,  43 

Prim,  General,  Spanish  leader,  269. 

Prussia  awed  by  France,  20 ;  in 
1805,  39,  42. 

Psychology  in  1830,  149. 

Puebla,  battle  of,  254. 

Pushkin,  Alexander,  27  ;  his  "  Monu- 
ment," 86. 

Railroads,  early,  in  Europe,  139; 

development  of,  351  ;    speed  on, 

352;  in  1899,  376. 
Ramsey,  Professor,  discovers  liquid 

air,  376. 
Reactionary  rulers  in  1830,  154. 
Rebellion  of  1861  in  United  State.s, 

249. 
Redan,  the,  at  Sebastopol,  220  ;  fall 

of,  221. 


Red  Cross,  the,  360. 

Reform  Bill  of  1832  passed  by  par- 
liament, 137,  143  ;  importance  of, 
171. 

Religion  in  1830,  149;  growth  and 
broadening  in,  354. 

Rhodes,  Cecil,  influence  of,  371. 

Riel,  Louis,  first  rebellion  of,  273 ; 
defeat  and  death  of,  339. 

Renan,  observations  of,  292. 

Roberts  at  Kandahar,  319. 

"  Rocket,"  the,  first  locomotive,  126. 

Rodgers,  43. 

Romberg  revolutionizes  study  of 
nervous  diseases,  127. 

Rome,  capture  of,  282  ;  made  capi- 
tal of  Italy,  279,  282. 

Rontgen  discovers  X-rays,  376. 

Ross,  Sir  John,  in  the  arctic,  119. 

Rousseau,  25,  26. 

Russia  in  1800,  19 ;  in  1805,  41 
joins  France,  49  ;  against  Napo 
leon,  67;  invades  Siberia,  113 
jealousy  of  western  Europe,  216 
influence  of  Crimean  War  on,  221 
234 ;  serfs  emancipated,  256 
war  with  Turkey,  307  ;  in  Asia 
318;  national  unity  of,  328 
"  Russification  "  of  Poland  and 
Finland,  339. 

Russian  America.     See  Alaska. 

Russian  Fur  Company,  119. 

"  Russification."     See  Russia. 

St.  Helena,  Napoleon  banished  to, 

77- 
Sadowa,  battle  of,  267. 
Salamanca,  battle  of,  67. 
Salvation  Army,  the,  325. 
Samoa,  trouble  in,  336 ;   hurricane 

in.  337-_ 
San  Martin,  the  liberator,  89 ;  crosses 

Andes,   89  ,  in  Peru,    103  ;  meets 

Bolivar,   103  ;    resigns  leadership, 

103  ;   death  of,  130. 
San  Stefano,  peace  of,  307. 
Saragossa,  "  Maid  of,"  56. 
Sardinia,  kingdom  of,  rise  to  power 

of,  205. 
Sarmiento,  Domingo,  statesmanship 

of,  287. 


INDEX. 


407 


Sartorius  advocates  steam  for  war 
vessels,  232. 

Scheiling,  26. 

Schill,  Major,  57. 

Schiller,  26;  in  181 5,  84. 

Schlegel,  26. 

Schroder,  85. 

Science  in  1830,  145. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  "  Marmion,"  84. 

Sebastopol,  siege  of,  218;  fall  of, 
221. 

Second  War  of  American  Inde- 
pendence (1812),  80. 

Sedan,  surrender  of,  281. 

Seeley,    Prof.,    on    Sepoy  rebellion, 

^^^■ 

Seignobos  on  transformation  dur- 
ing Nineteenth  Century,  345,  364. 

Senef elder,  Alois,  lithography,  17. 

Sepoy  rebellion,  232. 

Serrano,  Marshal,  Spanish  leader, 
269  ;  dictator,  305. 

"  Seven  Weeks'  War  "  of  1866,  266. 

Seward  champion  of  anti-slavery,  1 84. 

Sewing-machine,  invention  of,  195. 

Ship-building,  17. 

Schleswig-IIolstein  War,  255. 

Sicily,  conquest  of,  240. 

"  Sick  Man  of  Europe,"  the,  166, 
306. 

Siberia,  Russia  in,  113. 

Siddons,  Mrs.,  85. 

Sikhs  of  the  Punjab,  revolt  of,  182  ; 
loyalty  of,  in  Sepoy  rebellion,  233. 

Slavery  in  United  States  in  1820, 
145  ;  abolished  in  Cuba,  320.  See 
Lincoln. 

Slave-trade  abolished,  112. 

Small-po.x,  prevention  of,  17. 

Smith,  S.  F.,  author  of  "  America," 
missionary  hymn,  118. 

Smith,  Sydney,  contempt  for  Ameri- 
can literature,  95. 

Socialism  in  Germany,  323. 

Socialist  efforts,  274,  298. 

Social  Science  Association,  232. 

Solferino,  battle  of,  224. 

Sommering  suggests  telegraph  to 
Napoleon,  S3. 

South  African  Republic  proclaimed, 
318. 


South  America,  progress  of,  287  ; 
real  benefaction  of,  288  ;  in  1889, 
334- 

South  Carolina  secedes,  243. 

Southern  Confederacy  struggles  for 
recognition,  257. 

Southern  States  secede,  244. 

Spain  in  North  America,  21  ;  under 
French  control,  20,  39 ;  turns 
against  Napoleon,  51,  67  ;  sells 
Florida,  90;  revolution  in,  91, 
269  ;  seeks  "  alien  "  king,  270  ; 
constitutional  unity  of,  305  ;  Al- 
fonso, king  of,  305 ;  war  with 
United  States,  369;  defeat  of, 
370. 

Spanish  America,  revolt  of,  87,  89. 

Spencer,  philosophy  of,  292. 

"  Spheres  of  Influence,"  323,332,'379. 

Steamboats,  61,  83,  94. 

Steamships,  development  in  and 
-speed  of,  352. 

Stein,  e.xile  of,  53  ;  rouses  Germany, 

73- 

Steinheil  perfects  a  telegraph,  142. 

Stephenson,  George,  opens  first 
railway  in  England,  116;  inaugu- 
rates modem  railway,  126. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  in  Samoa, 
336  ;  on  Bismarck,  337. 

Strasburg,  Louis  Napoleon  at,  169. 

Strikes  and  labor  troubles,  275. 

Students,  enthusiasm  of,  in  181 5,  85. 

Suez  Cana]  built  and  opened,  271. 

"  Sully,"  ship,  Morse  designs  tele- 
graph on,  141. 

Sumter,  Fort,  bombardment  of,  248. 

Sweden  under  French  control,  20 ; 
reforms  in,  357. 

Switzerland  under  French  control, 
20,  40  ;  new  constitution  of,  137  ; 
popular  government  in,  294. 

Sverdrup,  Norwegian  leader  356. 

Szechenyi,  "  Apostle  of  Hungarian 
emancipation,"  116,  173. 

Tai-ping  rebelhon  in  China,  210. 
Taine  on  Napoleon,   102  ;  on  Byron, 

1 10. 
Talbot,  Fo.x,  improves  daguerrotype, 

1 78. 


4o8 


INDEX. 


Talma  on  Erfurt,  84. 
Taou-Kwang,  Chinese  emperor,  209. 
Tara,  Hill  of,  great  meeting  on,  1 74. 
Tasmania  in  1800,  23. 
Tchernaya,   battle  of,  Sardinians  at, 

Teen-wang,    See  Hung-sew. 

Telegram,  the  first,  180. 

Telegraph,  beginnings  of,  142 ; 
Morse's  idea  of,  142  ;  experiments 
with,  143  ;  growth  of,  291. 

Telephone  introduced,  326. 

Telford,  61. 

Temperance  reform,  147. 

Tennyson,  "  Locksley  Hall,"  150, 
155;  Ode  on  Wellington,  211  ;  "In 
Memoriam,"  213,  214;  "Charge 
of  the  Light  Brigade,"  218. 

Thackeray,  William  Makepeace,  at 
St.  Helena,  71  ;  on  George  IH. 
and  George  IV.,  92. 

Theatre  in  181 5,  85. 

Thiers,  Louis  Adolph,  prime  minis- 
ter, 165 ;  desires  constitutional 
monarchy,  166;  arraigns  Louis 
Napoleon,  269 ;  agrees  to  peace 
of  Versailles,  283 ;  president  of 
French  republic,  283. 

Tilsit,  treaty  of,  49. 

"  Times,"  London,  26. 

Todleben,  ability  of,  218. 

Tolstoi",  Count  Lyon,  313  ;  teachings 
of,  314 ;  influence  of,  316,  325, 
340, 

Torres  Vedras,  stand  at,  67. 

Total  Abstinence  vSociety,  first,  147. 

Toynbee,  Arnold,  "  settlement "  or- 
ganizer, 325. 

Trafalgar,  battle  of,  39. 

Transvaal  annexed,  308.  See  South 
African  Republic. 

Tripoli,  pasha  of,  43. 

Trusts,  rise  of,  374. 

Truxton,  43. 

Turin,  Victor  Emmanuel  proclaimed 
king  of  Italy  at,  242. 

Turkey  in  1800,  20  ;  war  with  Rus- 
sia, 217,  307  ;  in  1875,  3°5;  trou- 
bles in,  306 ;  war  with  Greece,  366. 
See  "  Sick  Man  of  Europe,"  and 
"  Eastern  Question." 


Tyndall,  studies  of,  292. 
Typewriter  introduced,  326. 
Tyrol,  revolt  of,  56. 

Uhland's  folk-songs,  120, 

"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  published, 
213. 

United  States  in  1800,  21  ;  in  the 
Mediterranean,  42  ;  in  1805,  44  ; 
Napoleon's  designs  on,  57 ;  in 
1820,  93  ;  steamboats  in,  94  ;  rec- 
ognizes South  American  Repub- 
lics, 104;  industries  and  inventions 
in  1830,  141  ;  slavery  in,  145 ; 
"isms"  in,  145;  literature  in,  in 
1835,  160;  not  represented  at  first 
Pan-American  Congress,  129;  in 
1830-1840,  134;  slavery  troubles 
of  1840,  176;  reformers  in,  176; 
expansion  of,  203 ;  treaty  with 
China,  210;  secession  in,  243,  244; 
opinions  in,  in  1861,  246;  treaty 
with  Japan,  211  ;  crisis  in  1856  in, 
228  ;  liberation  in,  in  i860,  231, 
234  ;  Civil  War  in,  249,  260  ;  Eu- 
ropean sympathy,  251,  260;  close 
of  war,  261  ;  new  epoch  in  1880, 
319;  growth  of,  222'  centennial 
of  Constitution,  334  ;  in  the  Pa- 
cific, 336  ;  arbitrates  sealing  trou- 
bles, 357  ;  vvoman  suffrage  in,  360  ; 
war  with  Spain,  369 ;  conquers 
Philippines,  370  ;  becomes  world- 
power,  370  ;  advances  in,  by  1870, 
286  ;  celebrates  centennial,  301. 

Universal  Peace  conference,  367, 
374- 

Vaccination,  17. 

Van  Dyke,  Dr.,  on  "  In  Memoriam," 
213. 

Venice  overthrown,  20. 

Versailles,  peace  of,  283. 

Victor  Emmanuel,  king  of  Sardinia, 
205  ;  declares  war  on  Austria,  224  ; 
annexes  Lombardy,  224  ;  supports 
Cavour,  240  ;  enters  Naples,  241  ; 
hailed  king  of  Italy,  241  ;  pro- 
claimed king,  242  ;  unites  Italy, 
269,  270  ;  bound  by  treaty,  279. 

Victoria,  Queen,  accession  of,  150; 


INDEX. 


409 


favors  American  Union,  25S  ;  em- 
press of   India,   299 ;   jubilee    of, 

329- 
Victoria  bridge  opened,  232. 
Victorian  Era,  the,  150. 
Vienna,  Congress  of,  83. 
Villeneuve,  defeat  of,  39. 
Villa    Franca,   peace  of,   225,   226 ; 

Lowell's  poem  on,  227. 
Volksraad  refuses  redress,  370. 
Von    Moltke,   masteriy   generalship 

of,  281. 
Volta,  Alessandro,  voltaic  pUe,  17. 

Wagner   at  Bayreuth,  292 ;   influ- 
ence of,  293. 
Wagram,  battle  of,  56. 
Walcheren,  defeat  at,  58 
Wales,   Prince   of,  visits   America, 

257- 

Wallace  on  early  railways  in  Eng- 
land, 139. 

Washington,  George,  influence  of, 
14,  15;  farewell  advice,  25,  44; 
against  foreign  alliances,  205  ;  sug- 
gests "  Monroe  Doctrine,"  107  ; 
plea  for  union,  244. 

Washington,  treaty  of,  295. 

War  of  i8i2.  United  States  and 
England,  79. 

War  of  Liberation  in  1S13,  74. 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  77. 

Watts,  James,  modern  steam-engine 
dates  from,  140. 

Wellesley.     See  Wellington. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  in  India,  40 
in  Portugal,  52,  retains  Spain,  67 
prominence  of,  82  ;  shield,  101 
prime  minister,  125  ;  resigns,  126 
death  of,  211. 


Webster,  Daniel,  champion  of  Amer- 
ican idea,  128,  145;  on  compro- 
mise of  1850,  185  ;  death  of,  211, 
212. 

West  Indian  Islands  in  1800,  24. 

"  White  City,"  the,  353. 

Whitman,  influence  of,  293. 

Whitney,  Eli,  18,  61. 

Whittier  on  England's  abolition  of 
slavery,  144. 

William  I.,  king  of  Prussia,  257. 

William  I.,  of  Germany,  refuses  Na- 
poleon's demands  ;  proclaimed . 
emperor,  282  ;  arbitrates  between 
England  and  United  States,  295  ; 
centennial  greeting  to  United 
States,  302  ;  death  of,  327. 

William  II.  of  Germany,  accessiotf 
of,  327  ;  arrogance  of,  331  ; 
"  strenuousness  of,"  349  ;  dimisses 
Bismarck,  350. 

Wilhelmshoe,  Napoleon  III.  pris- 
oner at,  2S1. 

Wolfe's  "  Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore," 

54- 
Woman,  advance  of,  360. 
Woman's  suffrage,  361. 
Worth,  battle  of,  281. 
Wurschen,  battle  of,  73. 

X-RAYS,  discovery  of,  376. 

"  Young  Germany  "  in  1835,  158. 
Young  Turkey,  306. 

Zhukovski,  "  Poet  in  the  Russian 

Camp,"  86. 
Zoology  in  1830,  149. 
Zulu  appeal  to  England,  308. 


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